Welsh writer, dramatist and actor
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Born
| George Emlyn Williams
(
1905-11-26
)
26 November 1905
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Died
| 25 September 1987
(1987-09-25)
(aged 81)
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Occupation(s)
| Writer, dramatist, actor
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Years active
| 1927–1985
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George Emlyn Williams
,
CBE
(26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a
Welsh
writer,
dramatist
and actor.
Early life
[
edit
]
Williams was born into a
Welsh
-speaking,
working class
family at 1 Jones Terrace,
Pen-y-ffordd
, Ffynnongroyw,
Flintshire
. He was the eldest of the three surviving sons of Mary (nee Williams) a former maid-servant and Richard Williams, a greengrocer.
[1]
He spoke only Welsh until the age of eight. Later, he said he would probably have begun working in the mines at age 12 if he had not caught the attention of Sarah Grace Cooke, the model for Miss Moffat in
The Corn Is Green
. She was a teacher of French at the grammar school in
Holywell, Flintshire
in 1915, where Williams had gone on a scholarship. Over the next seven years she encouraged him in his studies and helped pay for him to stay with a French friend of hers in Haute-Savoie in France, where he spent three months perfecting his French. When he was 17 she helped him win a scholarship to
Christ Church, Oxford
, where he studied French and Italian.
[2]
In 1926, during his studies at university, Williams had a
nervous breakdown
, which was blamed largely on a failed emotional friendship with another undergraduate. As a means of recovery Miss Cooke encouraged him to write.
[3]
However, Williams intended to enter the theatrical world too and joined the
Oxford University Dramatic Society
(OUDS).
[4]
Professional career
[
edit
]
Aged 22, Williams performed with OUDS in his first full-length play,
Full Moon
, at the original
Oxford Playhouse
in 1927. Later that year he joined a London-based repertory company and began his stage career. By age 25 (1930), he had expanded his writing with works such as
A Murder Has Been Arranged
and
The Late Christopher Bean
. The same year he appeared in
Edgar Wallace
's hit thriller
On the Spot
in the West End.
Over the next few years, Williams took on roles on stage and on film, including the first film celluloid version of the Edgar Wallace mystery,
The Frightened Lady
. At age 30, he became an overnight star, however, with his thriller
Night Must Fall
(1935), in which he also played the lead role of a psychopathic murderer. The play was noted for its exploration of the killer's complex psychological state, a step forward for its genre. It was made into a film in 1937 with
Robert Montgomery
, and again in 1964 with
Albert Finney
. It has been frequently revived, most recently in the
West End
with
Jason Donovan
,
[5]
and on Broadway in 1999 with
Matthew Broderick
.
[6]
[7]
His other highly successful play was very different:
The Corn Is Green
, written in 1938 at age 33), was partly based on his own childhood in Wales. He starred as a Welsh schoolboy in the play's London premiere. The play came to Broadway in 1940 with
Ethel Barrymore
as the schoolteacher Miss Moffat. A 1950 Broadway revival starred Eva La Gallienne. The play was turned into a very successful film starring
Bette Davis
, and again into a made-for-television film starring
Katharine Hepburn
, under the direction of Williams's close friend
George Cukor
. An attempt to turn the play into a musical in the 1970s, with Davis again in the role of the schoolteacher with lyrics by Williams, failed. So did a Broadway revival in 1983 starring
Cicely Tyson
and
Peter Gallagher
. But a 1985 London revival at the
Old Vic
with
Deborah Kerr
was successful, as was a 2007 production at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival
in
Massachusetts
. That production starred
Kate Burton
. Williams was a close friend of Kate's parents,
Richard Burton
and Burton's first wife, Sybil. In the
Williamstown
production, the schoolboy ? the role created by and modeled on Williams himself ? was played by Kate Burton's son, Morgan Ritchie.
[8]
The Corn is Green
was revived at the
National Theatre
in London in 2022 with
Nicola Walker
playing Miss Moffat.
[9]
Emlyn Williams included this story in his early autobiography
George
covering the years 1905-1927 and published in 1961.
[10]
A sequel,
Emlyn
, covering the years 1927?1935, was published in 1973.
Emlyn Williams's autobiographical light comedy,
The Druid's Rest
, was first performed at the
St Martin's Theatre
,
London
, in 1944. It saw the stage debut of
Richard Burton
whom Williams had spotted at an audition in
Cardiff
. The play has been revived at
Clwyd Theatr Cymru
in both 1976 and 2005, and received its first
London
revival in sixty years at London's
Finborough Theatre
in 2009.
[11]
[12]
In addition to stage plays, Emlyn Williams wrote a number of film screenplays, working with
Alfred Hitchcock
(on
The Man Who Knew Too Much
),
Carol Reed
and other directors. He acted in and contributed dialogue to various films based on the novels of
A. J. Cronin
, including
The Citadel
(1938),
The Stars Look Down
(1939),
Hatter's Castle
(1942) and
Web of Evidence
(1959).
[
citation needed
]
He played the mad Roman emperor
Caligula
in an uncompleted 1937 film version of Robert Graves's novel
I, Claudius
(with Charles Laughton);
[13]
a kindly veterinarian who accidentally causes the death of a murderess (played by
Bette Davis
) in the 1952 suspense drama
Another Man's Poison
; and the fool Wamba in the 1952
Ivanhoe
(with
Robert Taylor
and
Elizabeth Taylor
).
[
citation needed
]
Other screen credits include Hitchcock's adaptation of
Daphne du Maurier
's
Jamaica Inn
(with
Charles Laughton
), Gabriel Pascal's film version of
George Bernard Shaw
's
Major Barbara
(with
Wendy Hiller
and
Rex Harrison
),
Jose Ferrer
's
I Accuse!
(playing Emile Zola),
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
(with Gary Cooper),
The L-Shaped Room
(with
Leslie Caron
), and a made-for-TV adaptation of
Charles Dickens
's
David Copperfield
(with an all-star cast including
Laurence Olivier
,
Michael Redgrave
,
Ralph Richardson
and
Edith Evans
). In 1941 Williams starred in the film
You Will Remember
, directed by Jack Raymond and written by
Sewell Stokes
and Lydia Hayward. The film is based on the life of the popular late Victorian songwriter
Leslie Stuart
, played here by
Robert Morley
, with Williams as Stuart's best friend. Also in 1941, he had a principal supporting part (as Snobby Price) in
Gabriel Pascal
's filming of
George Bernard Shaw
's
Major Barbara
.
[
citation needed
]
Williams's only film as a director,
The Last Days of Dolwyn
(1949), which he also wrote and starred in, marked the screen debut of his fellow Welshman, Richard Burton. Williams often appeared in his own plays, and was famous for his one-man shows, with which he toured the world, playing
Charles Dickens
in an evening of excerpts from
Dickens's novels
. This "one man show" was the start of a whole new theatrical genre. He followed up his Dickens performance with one man shows based on the works of
Dylan Thomas
,
Dylan Thomas Growing Up
, and H. H. Munro better known under his pseudonym
Saki
. His post-war acting credits included
The Winslow Boy
by
Terence Rattigan
and
The Deputy
aka
The Representative
by
Rolf Hochhuth
on Broadway. He also was the "voice" of
Lloyd George
in the seminal
BBC
documentary
The Great War
(1964).
[
citation needed
]
Among Williams's other books was the best seller
Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and its Detection
(1968), a semi-fictionalised account of the
Moors murderers
,
Ian Brady
and
Myra Hindley
. His 1980 novel
Headlong
, the fictional story of the unexpected death of the entire British royal family in a freak accident in 1930, and the ascent of a most unlikely heir to the British throne as a result, was the loose basis of the 1991 motion picture
King Ralph
.
[14]
On Monday 17 February 1975, Williams was
Roy Plomley
's guest on
Desert Island Discs
on
BBC Radio 4
. The author's book choice was a dictionary with a typewriter, pen and paper combined as his luxury.
[15]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Williams was married in 1935 to actress Mary Marjorie O'Shann (Molly Shan), who died in 1970. They had two sons,
Alan
, a writer, and
Brook
, an actor. Brook became a close friend of Richard Burton, working as his personal assistant and appearing in many of his films. Williams is godfather to
Kate Burton
.
Both during his marriage and following his wife's death, Williams was actively bisexual throughout his adult life.
[16]
He maintained a relationship from 1981 to 1986 with American theatre journalist Albert N. Williams whom Emlyn met while appearing at the Northlight Theatre in the
Chicago
area with his one-man Charles Dickens show. (Albert Williams served as Emlyn Williams's personal assistant during a 1982 tour of England, Wales and
Ireland
with the Charles Dickens and
Dylan Thomas
solo shows.)
[
citation needed
]
Honours
[
edit
]
Death
[
edit
]
Emlyn Williams died on 25 September 1987 at his flat in
Dovehouse Street
,
Chelsea
, London, from complications from bowel cancer. He was 81 years old. He was cremated at
Golders Green Crematorium
, London.
[19]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
Plays
[
edit
]
Novels (inexhaustive list)
[
edit
]
- Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and its Detection (1968)
- Headlong (1980)
Autobiography
[
edit
]
- George
(1961)
- Emlyn
(1973)
Filmography
[
edit
]
- Night Must Fall
, directed by
Richard Thorpe
(1937, based on the play
Night Must Fall
)
- Life Begins at Eight-Thirty
, directed by
Irving Pichel
(1942, based on the play
The Light of Heart
)
- The Corn Is Green
, directed by
Irving Rapper
(1945, based on the play
The Corn Is Green
)
- Time Without Pity
, directed by
Joseph Losey
(UK, 1957, based on the play
Someone Waiting
)
- Life Begins at Eight
, directed by
Michael Kehlmann
(West Germany, 1962, based on the play
The Light of Heart
)
- Night Must Fall
, directed by
Karel Reisz
(UK, 1964, based on the play
Night Must Fall
)
- The Corn Is Green
, directed by
George Cukor
(TV film, 1979, based on the play
The Corn Is Green
)
- King Ralph
, directed by
David S. Ward
(1991, based on the novel
Headlong
)
Screenwriter
[
edit
]
Director
[
edit
]
Actor
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Williams, (George) Emlyn (1905?1987), actor and playwright"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol. 1 (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 23 September 2004.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/39950
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
Krebs, Albin (26 September 1987).
"Emlyn Williams, Welsh Actor and Writer, Dies"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
18 October
2016
.
- ^
Folkart, Burt A. (26 September 1987).
"Welsh Dramatist and Actor Emlyn Williams Dies at 81"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
18 October
2016
.
- ^
Carpenter, Humphrey
,
O.U.D.S.: A Centenary History of the Oxford University Dramatic Society 1885?1985
,
Oxford University Press
, 1985 (
ISBN
0-19-212241-X
)
- ^
"Night Must Fall"
. 28 October 1996.
- ^
"Night Must Fall"
. 9 March 1999.
- ^
"Night Must Fall"
. Internet Broadway Database
. Retrieved
1 August
2015
.
- ^
Isherwood, Charles.
"Rescuing a Student From a Life in the Mines"
,
The New York Times
, 7 August 2007.
- ^
"The Corn is Green"
.
National Theatre - What's On
. 11 February 2020.
- ^
"George: An Early Autobiography"
.
Goodreads
. Goodreads.
- ^
"Emlyn Williams' the Druid's Rest Revived at Finborough Theatre | TheaterMania"
.
- ^
"The Druid's Rest"
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
Barker, Felix (18 December 1965).
"The epic that never was"
.
Liverpool Echo
. No. 26755. p. 4
. Retrieved
26 January
2019
– via
British Newspaper Archive
.
- ^
Ward, David S. (15 February 1991),
King Ralph
, John Goodman, Peter O'Toole, John Hurt
, retrieved
13 November
2017
- ^
"BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Emlyn Williams"
.
- ^
John Russell Stephens Emlyn Williams: the making of a dramatist - Page 147
- 2000 -
In Emlyn, Williams presents himself as bisexual and in a loose sense he was probably right; but his sexual experience with women was at best limited to a few one-night stands, almost always in brothels, whereas all his committed.
- ^
"Wales Honours Princess and Duke"
.
- ^
"Obituary: Mr Emlyn Williams".
The Times
. No. 62884. London. 26 September 1987. p. 10.
- ^
Wilson, Scott.
Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons
, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 51034). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- ^
"He Was Born Gay (Queen's Theatre, 1937)"
.
Theatricalia
. Retrieved
5 March
2019
.
- ^
"Gielgud & Goodner in Williams' 'He was born gay'
"
.
Getty Images
. Retrieved
5 March
2019
.
- ^
Bibliographic detail taken from a copy of
George
, Williams autobiography published by Random House
New York
in 1961
External links
[
edit
]
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