Griffith Jones (actor)

Griffith Jones
Born	(1909-11-19)19 November 1909 London, England
Died	30 January 2007(2007-01-30) (aged 97) London, England

Griffith Jones (born Harold Jones; 19 November 1909 – 30 January 2007) was an English film, stage and television actor.

Born in London, England, Jones was the son of a Welsh-speaking dairy owner. In 1932, he married Robin Isaac, and they had two children: the actors Gemma Jones and Nicholas Jones. Robin died in 1985.

Early career

In 1930 Jones was studying law at University College London but Kenneth Barnes, the Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, noticed him in a student performance and offered him a career as an actor. His first professional engagement was in Carpet Slippers at the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage, in 1930, while still at RADA. He won the annual RADA Gold Medal in 1932. His first West End production were Vile Bodies at the Vaudeville and Richard of Bordeaux (in which he appeared with John Gielgud) at the New. In the following year he appeared with Laurence Olivier in The Rats of Norway. He made a success as "Caryl Sanger" with Elizabeth Bergner in Escape Me Never.

In 1932 he also made his film debut, in The Faithful Heart, and he continued to appear in British films throughout the 1930s. In 1940 he joined the army, but spent most of World War II in a touring concert party, returning to the West End in 1945 to star in Lady Windermere's Fan.

Royal Shakespeare Company

He was a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in fifty productions with company between 1975 and 1999. His first season was in director Buzz Goodbody's noted opening year at The Other Place, playing the Ghost to Ben Kingsley's Hamlet and Sir William Stanley in Perkin Warbeck. His later roles included Duncan, opposite Ian Mckellen, in Macbeth, Antigonus in The Winter's Tale, Aegeon in A Comedy of Errors, Gower in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Chebutiken and Ferrapont in separate productions of Three Sisters and Tim Linkinwater and Fluggers in Nicholas Nickleby. His last role, at the age of 90, was Tubal in The Merchant of Venice.

Selected filmography

• The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954)
• Miranda (1948)
• They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
• The Rake's Progress (1945)
• The Wicked Lady (1945)
• The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)
• First a Girl (1935)
• Escape Me Never (1935)

Sources

• Obituary in The Independent
• Obituary in The Times
• Obituary in The Guardian
• Performances with the RSC

External links

• Griffith Jones at IMDb
• Biography from A Dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company