Nigel Davenport

Nigel Davenport
Davenport as Peter with Angela Lansbury as Helen in A Taste of Honey on Broadway, 1960.
Born	Arthur Nigel Davenport (1928-05-23)23 May 1928 Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, England
Died	Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Years active	1953-2003
Spouse(s)	Helena White (1951-1960; divorced) Maria Aitken (1972–1981; divorced)
Children	3

Arthur Nigel Davenport (23 May 1928 – 25 October 2013) was an English stage, television and film actor.

Early life and education

Davenport was born in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, to Katherine Lucy (née Meiklejohn) and Arthur Henry Davenport. His father was a bursar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He grew up in an academic family and was educated at St Peter's School, Seaford, Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford. Originally he chose to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics but switched to English on the advice of one of his tutors.

Career

Davenport first appeared on stage at the Savoy Theatre and then with the Shakespeare Memorial Company, before joining the English Stage Company, on of its earliest members, at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. He began appearing in British film and television productions in supporting roles, including a walk-on in Tony Richardson's film, Look Back in Anger (1959). Subsequent roles included a theatre manager opposite Laurence Olivier in the film version of The Entertainer and a policeman in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (both 1960).

He made an impression as Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk in A Man for All Seasons (1966), costarred with Michael Caine in the war movie Play Dirty, and had a major role as Lord Bothwell in Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1972, he appeared as George Adamson, opposite Susan Hampshire in Living Free, the sequel to Born Free.

Speaking of working with Jack Palance on the Dan Curtis production of Dracula (1973), Davenport said "I was pretty frightened of that gentleman because he was so bloody tall! He was six-foot-four and, as he wanted to look like Dracula, he had three-inch lifts in his shoes, so he was like six-foot-seven - and he was a big guy". During the production of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Davenport read the lines of HAL 9000 off-camera during the computer's dialogues with actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Canadian actor Douglas Rain was ultimately chosen for the role of HAL's voice. Davenport took the leading role in the off-beat Phase IV (1974), which failed to find an audience.

In February 1997, Davenport was the subject of This Is Your Life when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at David Nicholson's stables near Cheltenham. He retired from acting at the turn of the 21st century when he could no longer memorise lines from scripts.

Personal life

Davenport was married twice, first to Helena Margaret White whom he met while he was studying at Oxford University. They married in 1951 and had a daughter, Laura and a son, Hugo. His second wife was actress Maria Aitken with whom he had a second son, Jack, also an actor, best known for co-starring in Pirates of the Caribbean. According to Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Jack was cast as the James Norrington character, partly because of Nigel's involvement in A High Wind in Jamaica.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1959	Look Back in Anger	1st Commercial Traveller
1960	Peeping Tom	Det. Sgt. Miller	Uncredited
1960	The Entertainer	Theatre Manager	Uncredited
1962	Mix Me a Person	Juke's Stepfather
1963	Ladies Who Do	Mr Strang
1964	The Third Secret	Lew Harding
1965	A High Wind in Jamaica	Mr Thornton
1965	Where the Spies Are	Parkington
1965	Sands of the Kalahari	Sturdevan
1965	Life at the Top	Mottram
1966	A Man for All Seasons	Duke of Norfolk
1968	Sebastian	General Philips
1968	Play Dirty	Captain Cyril Leech
1968	The Strange Affair	Defence Counsel
1969	The Royal Hunt of the Sun	Hernando de Soto
1969	The Virgin Soldiers	Sergeant Driscoll
1970	No Blade of Grass	John Custance
1970	The Mind of Mr. Soames	Dr Maitland
1971	Mary, Queen of Scots	Lord Bothwell
1971	Villain	Bob Matthews
1971	The Last Valley	Gruber
1972	Living Free	George Adamson
1973	Bram Stoker's Dracula	Van Helsing
1973	The Picture of Dorian Gray	Sir Harry Wotton
1974	Phase IV	Dr Ernest D. Hubbs
1975	The Regent's Wife
1975	Trick or Treat		Unfinished
1976	Death of a Snowman	Lt. Ben Deel
1977	The Island of Dr. Moreau	Montgomery
1977	Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers	Sgt. Driscoll
1979	The London Connection	Arthur Minton
1979	Zulu Dawn	Colonel Hamilton-Brown
1980	Cry of the Innocent	Gray Harrison Hunt	TV movie
1981	Chariots of Fire	Lord Birkenhead
1981	Nighthawks	Peter Hartman
1984	A Christmas Carol	Silas Scrooge
1984	Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes	Major Jack Downing
1986	Caravaggio	Giustiniani
1986	Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy	Lord Ismay
1988	Without a Clue	Lord Smithwick
1993	Keeping Up Appearances ("The Commodore")	The Commodore	1 episode
1996	The Treasure Seekers	Lord Blackstock	TV movie
1997	The Opium War		Uncredited
1997	Shanghai 1937	Butler	TV movie

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1957-1958	The Adventures of Robin Hood	St Peter Marston, Claude the Seneschal, Barty and others	7 episodes
1974	South Riding	Robert Carne	11 episodes
1975	Oil Strike North	Jim Fraser	13 episodes
1979	Prince Regent	King George III	8 episodes, TV mini-series
1982-83	Don't Rock The Boat	Jack Hoxton	12 episodes, TV mini-series
1981	Masada	Sen. Mucianus	Part 1
1982	Minder	Ray	Episode: Why Pay Tax
1982	An Inspector Calls	Arthur Birling	3 episodes, TV mini-series
1985-1990	Howards' Way	Sir Edward Frere	29 episodes
1991	Trainer	James Brant	13 episodes
1993-95	The Upper Hand	Mr Donald Hamilton	2 episodes
1998	Mosley	Viscount Rothermere	Episode: Beyond the Pale
2000	David Copperfield	Dan Peggotty	TV movie
2000	Midsomer Murders	William Smithers	1 episode
2000	Longitude	Sir Charles Pelham	TV movie

External links

• Nigel Davenport at the Internet Movie Database
• Nigel Davenport recalls his appearance on This Is Your Life