Basil Sydney

Basil Sydney
File:Rj59.jpg Basil Sydney and Doris Keane as Romeo and Juliet
Born	(1894-04-23)23 April 1894 St Osyth, Essex, England, UK
Died	London, England, UK
Cause of death	Pleurisy
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1920-1964
Spouse(s)	1) Doris Keane (1918-25; divorced) 2) Mary Ellis (m. 1929-19??; divorced) 3) Joyce Howard (19??-19??); 3 children

Basil Sydney (23 April 1894 – 10 January 1968) was an English actor who made over fifty screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island (1950), Ivanhoe (1952) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), but the focus of his career was the legitimate stage on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sydney made his name in the London stage hit Romance by Edward Sheldon in the dual role of the priest and the priest's nephew opposite the play's Broadway star Doris Keane in 1915, and costarred with Keane in the 1920 silent film of the play. The couple married in 1918, and when Keane revived Romance in New York in 1921, Sydney made his Broadway debut in the parts. He stayed in New York for over a decade playing classical roles like Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (1922), Richard Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple (1923), the title role in Hamlet (1923), Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I (1926), and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew (1927).

Personal life

In 1925, Sydney divorced Keane; four years later, in 1929, he married actress Mary Ellis, and the couple moved to England. There he concentrated more on film than on theatre work. In the 1940s he married English film actress Joyce Howard; they had three children.

Basil Sydney died from pleurisy in 1968, aged 73.

Filmography

• Romance (1920)
• Red Hot Romance (1922)
• The Midshipmaid (1932)
• Dirty Work (1934)
• The Third Clue (1934)
• The White Lilac (1935)
• The Riverside Murder (1935)
• The Tunnel (1935)
• Blind Man's Bluff (1936)
• The Amateur Gentleman (1936)
• Rhodes of Africa (1936)
• Accused (1936)
• Crime Over London (1936)
• Talk of the Devil (1936)
• The Four Just Men (1939)
• Shadowed Eyes (1940)
• The Big Blockade (1940)
• The Farmer's Wife (1941)
• Spring Meeting (1941)
• Ships with Wings (1942)
• The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)
• The Next of Kin (1942)
• Went the Day Well? (1942)
• Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
• Meet Me at Dawn (1947)
• The Man Within (1947)
• Jassy (1947)
• Hamlet (1948)
• The Angel with the Trumpet (1950)
• Treasure Island (1950)
• The Magic Box (1951)
• Ivanhoe (1952)
• Salome (1953)
• Three's Company (1954)
• Hell Below Zero (1954)
• Star of India (1954)
• Simba (1955)
• The Dam Busters (1955)
• Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
• Island in the Sun (1957)
• Sea Wife (1957)
• A Question of Adultery (1958)
• John Paul Jones (1959)
• The Devil's Disciple (1959)
• The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)
• The Hands of Orlac (1960)
• A Story of David (1961)

External links

• Basil Sydney at the Internet Movie Database