Actress Jenny Quayle reflects on family and her father’s career, legendary stage and screen actor, Sir Anthony Quayle. From her earliest memories to Sir Anthony establishing his own theatre company, Jenny talks openly and at length about his life, family and career.
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Jenny when we were producing a documentary that featured archive interviews we’d recorded with Sir Anthony Quayle and internationally acclaimed comic actor, Roy Kinnear. As is often the way we got chatting and recorded way more material than we needed for the original documentary and so decided to also create a short documentary on the life and work of Sir Anthony.
Quayle on Quayle includes personal insights from Jenny, mixed with clips from the original interview I recorded with Sir Anthony back stage at the Albery Theatre, now the Noel Coward Theatre, just before a performance of The Clandestine Marriage, the inaugural production of Anthony’s newly formed Compass Theatre Company.
SIR ANTHONY QUAYLE had an astonishing international career include performances in the West End and on Broadway, as well as appearing in many of the most iconic films of the last 20th century.
Sir Anthony joined the Old Vic in 1932, made his Broadway debut in 1936 and appeared in John Gielgud’s production of Richard II during his acclaimed 1937 season. Between 1948 and 1956 he directed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and laid the foundations for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
His major film roles included Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, The Battle of the River Plate, Ice Cold in Alex, The Guns of Navarone, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and The Fall of the Roman Empire.
His contribution to stage and screen was internationally recognised and respected; he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1969 for his role as Cardinal Wolsey in Anne of the Thousand Days.
Anthony was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1952 and was Knighted for Services to the Theatre in 1985.