Andrew Faulds

Andrew Faulds
Born	Andrew Matthew William Faulds 1 March 1923 Isoko, Tanzania
Died	31 May 2000(2000-05-31) (aged 77) Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Occupation	Actor, politician
Spouse	Bunty Whitfield (1945-2000)

Andrew Matthew William Faulds (1 March 1923 – 31 May 2000) was a British actor and politician.

Born in Isoko, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), to missionary parents, Faulds married Bunty Whitfield in 1945. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948 but first came to a wider public recognition playing Jet Morgan in Charles Chilton's radio drama Journey Into Space on the BBC Light Programme.

In 1959, Faulds and his wife played host to Paul Robeson who had travelled to England to appear at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon in Tony Richardson's production of Othello. Robeson had only recently been allowed to travel abroad again following the revocation of his passport. It was during this visit that Robeson inspired Faulds to take up political activism.

In the UK general election, 1964, the Labour Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, had been defeated in controversial circumstances in the Smethwick constituency by Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths. Smethwick had been a focus of immigration from the Commonwealth in the economic and industrial growth of the years following World War II and Griffiths ran a campaign critical of the government's policy. There were rumours that his supporters had covertly circulated the slogan If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour. Faulds defeated Griffiths in the UK general election, 1966 and was Labour Member of Parliament for the constituency until his retirement in 1997. (The constituency was renamed Warley East in 1974.) Smethwick remained the focus of much racial tension in England throughout Faulds' office, in particular following the Rivers of Blood Speech by Enoch Powell in 1968 which Faulds characterised as "... unchristian ... unprincipled, undemocratic and racialist".

There has been speculation that Faulds was denied ministerial office because of his open support of the Palestinian cause.

Faulds maintained his acting career throughout the 1960s and 1970s and, in particular became a key part of film director Ken Russell's repertory company, appearing in, among other films, Dante's Inferno (1967) (as William Morris), The Devils (1971), Mahler (1974) and Lisztomania (1975). Notably, he appeared in Russell's film The Music Lovers (1971) alongside Glenda Jackson who was also to go on to become a Labour MP.

One of Faulds' most famous roles is that of Phalerus in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), taking part in the famous skeleton fight scene by Ray Harryhausen, and another was in one of Tony Hancock's best remembered television programmes, unseen but as the voice of 'mayday' in "The Radio Ham" (1961).

Filmography

• Passport to Treason (1956)
• The One That Got Away (1957)
• Blind Spot (1958)
• Blood of the Vampire (1958)
• The Trollenberg Terror (1958)
• Sea of Sand (1958)
• The Professionals (1959)
• Danger Within (1959)
• SOS Pacific (1959)
• The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)
• Once More, with Feeling! (1960)
• A Matter of WHO (1961)
• Payroll (1961)
• The Hellfire Club (1961)
• What Every Woman Wants (1962)
• Cleopatra (1963)
• Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
• Campanadas a medianoche (1965)
• The One Eyed Soldiers (1966)
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
• The Music Lovers (1970)
• The Devils (1971)
• Young Winston (1972)
• Mahler (1974)
• Lisztomania (1975)

External links

• White, Michael (2000-06-01). "Obituary: Andrew Faulds". The Guardian. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicsobituaries/story/0,1441,563445,00.html. Retrieved 2007-08-11. 
• Andrew Faulds at the Internet Movie Database
• Catalogue of the Faulds papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Peter Griffiths	Member of Parliament for Smethwick 1966–Feb 1974	Succeeded by (constituency abolished)
Preceded by (new constituency)	Member of Parliament for Warley East Feb 1974–1997	Succeeded by (constituency abolished)