Colin Blakely

Theatre

In 1958, Blakely made his Belfast stage debut as Dick McCardle in Stanley Houghton's Master of the House.^[3][1] He also appeared in several Ulster Group Theatre productions,^[8] including Gerard McLarnon's The Bonefire (1958)^[9] and Patricia O'Connor's The Sparrow's Fall (1959).^[10] From 1959 he was at the Royal Court Theatre,^[3][5] appearing in Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance^[3][5][1] and, to critical approval, The Naming of Murderer's Rock.^[4][11][12] In the Royal Court production of Saint Joan, starring Joan Plowright, he had the small but prominent role of the English Soldier.^[13] Blakely himself said, about his transfer to working in England,

I was lucky then because the Royal Court were looking for actors like me at that time. Arden, Wesker, and so forth were writing for your plebians with rough knocked-about looking faces, so I got a job quite easily.^[6]

In 1961, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon,^[3] before joining the National Theatre for its opening in 1963 at the Old Vic;^[3][14] he was part of the NT cast that toured Moscow in 1965, the first time a foreign company was allowed to perform at the Kremlin.^[15][3][1] Critics and theatre historians have numbered Blakely among the actors like Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi whose talent emerged in the NT's early years;^[16][17][18] Laurence Olivier specifically named him as an example of the "Versatile... deeply enthusiastic, courageous, gifted" actors he had sought to hire as director.^[19]

Among the many stage plays in which he appeared were The Recruiting Officer, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Filumena Marturano, Volpone and Oedipus.^[3][14][20] He returned to the Royal Shakespeare in 1971 in Harold Pinter's Old Times and was subsequently in many West End plays.^[3][14]

In 1977, he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play for his performance in Just Between Ourselves.^[21]

Film

Notable film roles included Maurice Braithwaite in This Sporting Life (1963),^[22] Sir Thomas More's house servant Matthew in A Man for All Seasons (1966),^[23] Dr. Watson to Robert Stephens's Holmes in Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970),^[3] and the ageing Joseph Stalin in Jack Gold's Red Monarch (1983), a part he played with his native Ulster accent.^{[4][1][24][b]} In the 1975 British film, It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet, derived from the James Herriot books, Blakely played gruff Yorkshire vet Siegfried Farnon.^[28][29][c]

On stage, Blakely played the psychiatrist in Peter Shaffer's Equus, but for Sidney Lumet's 1977 film adaptation of the play he took the part of the tormented young protagonist's father; he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.^[32][13][33] He appeared in two films based on the Hercule Poirot novels of Agatha Christie, described as having "all-star" casts: Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Evil Under the Sun (1982).^[34] Other film roles included The Long Ships (1964),^[35] Young Winston (1972),^[36] The National Health (1973),^[35] The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976),^[37] The Dogs of War (1980),^[38] Nijinsky (1980)^[39] and Loophole (1981).^[35]

His last film role was in the Italian comedy The World of Don Camillo (1984), directed by and starring Terence Hill.^[40][41]

Television

In 1969, Blakely's controversial role as an anguished Jesus Christ in Dennis Potter's Son of Man gained him wide recognition.^[3][42] He became a regular on British television,^[3][4][1] and in the same year played the leading role in a BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.^[43] In The Hanged Man (1975), he starred as a tycoon who fakes his own death in order to find out who has tried to assassinate him.^[44]

Noted for his skill in Shakespearean parts,^[45] Blakely appeared on television as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra (1981), directed by Jonathan Miller as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare series;^[46] and as Kent in the 1983 Granada Television version of King Lear which starred Laurence Olivier.^[47][d] Other television appearances included The Beiderbecke Affair (1985),^[49] Operation Julie (1985)^[50] and Paradise Postponed (1986).^[4] His work as a white Zimbabwean adjusting to majority rule, in Douglas Livingstone's BBC-TV play Drums Along Balmoral Drive (1986), won him a BAFTA nomination.^[51][3][1] He last appeared onscreen in a 1987 production of The Birthday Party, broadcast a month after his death.^[52]