Colin Blakely

Colin Blakely
Blakely (left) as Dr. Watson in the film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Born
Colin George Blakely

(1930-09-23)23 September 1930
Bangor, Northern Ireland
Died7 May 1987(1987-05-07) (aged 56)
London, England
EducationSedbergh School
OccupationActor
Years active1957–1987
Spouse
​
(m. 1961)​
Children3 sons

Colin George Edward Blakely[1] (23 September 1930 – 7 May 1987) was a Northern Irish stage and screen actor. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Sidney Lumet's Equus (1977), and was nominated twice for a Best Actor in Television (1970, 1987). He was also an Olivier Award nominee.

According to the British Film Institute, Blakely's "chunky form and rumpled, good-natured features tended to direct him towards hero's-friend roles, but there was also an impressive toughness and intensity about his work."[2]

Early life

Blakely was born in Bangor, County Down, the son of Victor and Dorothy Blakely (née Ashmore).[1] His mother was a singer in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his father owned a sports retail shop in Belfast.[1] He attended Sedbergh School in Yorkshire (now Cumbria), England.[1][3]

At the age of 18, he started work in his family's sports goods shop in Belfast,[1] before going on to work as a timber-loader on the railways. In 1957, after a spell of amateur dramatics with the Bangor Drama Club, he turned professional with the Group Theatre, Belfast.[1]

Career

Theatre

In 1958, Blakely made his stage debut in Belfast as Dick McCardle in Master of the House.[3][1] He also appeared in several Ulster Group Theatre productions,[4] including Gerard McLarnon's The Bonefire (1958)[5] and Patricia O'Connor's The Sparrow's Fall (1959).[6] From 1959 he was at the Royal Court Theatre, appearing in Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance[3] and, to critical approval, The Naming of Murderer's Rock.[7][8][9] In the Royal Court production of Saint Joan, starring Joan Plowright, he had the small but prominent role of the English Soldier.[10] 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.[11]

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][12] 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.[13][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;[14][15][16] Laurence Olivier specifically named him as an example of the "Versatile... deeply enthusiastic, courageous, gifted" actors he had sought to hire as director.[17]

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][12] He returned to the Royal Shakespeare in 1971 in Harold Pinter's Old Times and was subsequently in many West End plays.[3][12]

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.[18]

Film

Notable film roles included Maurice Braithwaite in This Sporting Life (1963),[19] Sir Thomas More's house servant Matthew in A Man for All Seasons (1966), 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).[7][1][a][b] In the 1975 British film, It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet, derived from the James Herriot books, Blakely played the eccentric Siegfried Farnon. (Blakely's Son of Man co-star Robert Hardy would play the role in the 1978-1990 BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small.)

On stage, Blakely played the psychiatrist in Peter Shaffer's Equus, but took the part of the tormented protagonist's father in Sidney Lumet's 1977 film adaptation; he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[23][10][24] 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).[25] Other film roles included The Long Ships (1964),[26] Young Winston (1972),[27] The National Health (1973),[26] The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976),[28] The Dogs of War (1980),[29] Nijinsky (1980)[30] and Loophole (1981).[26]

His last film role was as Peppone in the Italian comedy The World of Don Camillo (1984), directed by and starring Terence Hill.

Television

On television, Blakely appeared in the Armchair Theatre series in 1962, episode "The Hard Knock" and director Charles Crichton unusually cast Blakely in two different roles during the same run of episodes of the 1967 series Man in a Suitcase.

In 1969, Blakely's controversial role as an anguished Jesus Christ in Dennis Potter's Son of Man gained him wide recognition.[3][31] He became a regular on British television,[7] and in the same year played the leading role in a BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.[32]

Noted for his skill in Shakespearean parts,[33] Blakely appeared on television as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra (1981), directed by Jonathan Miller as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare series;[34] and as Kent in the 1983 Granada Television version of King Lear which starred Laurence Olivier.[35] Other television appearances included The Beiderbecke Affair (1985), Operation Julie (1985)[36] and Paradise Postponed (1986).[7]

Personal life

In 1961 Blakely married British actress Margaret Whiting: they had worked together in A Moon for the Misbegotten the previous year. The couple had three sons,[3][33][1] Drummond, Cameron and Hamish.[37]

Death

Until two months before his death from leukaemia, he was performing in A Chorus of Disapproval in the West End while undergoing chemotherapy.[38] Though visibly in pain from the disease, he recorded a video appeal for routine cancer tests.[39] Blakely died, aged 56, at the Middlesex Hospital on May 7, 1987.[40]

Awards and nominations

Year Awards Category Nominated work Result Ref.
1970 British Academy Television Awards Best Actor The Wednesday Play: Son of Man / The Way We Live Now Nominated [41]
1977 Laurence Olivier Awards Actor of the Year in a New Play Just Between Ourselves Nominated [42]
1978 British Academy Film Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role Equus Nominated [24]
1987 British Academy Television Awards Best Actor ScreenPlay: Drums Across Balmoral Drive Nominated [41]

Filmography

Notes

  1. ^ Red Monarch was made by Britain's Channel 4 but released theatrically overseas.[20]
  2. ^ He screen-tested for the lead role in Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment, which went instead to David Warner.[21][22]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Clarke, Frances (October 2009). "Blakely, Colin George Edward". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2026.
  2. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Blakely, Colin (1930-1987) Biography". www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Mr Colin Blakely". The Times. No. 62763. 8 May 1987. p. 16.
  4. ^ Hartnoll 1993, p. 200.
  5. ^ Bell, Sam Hanna (1972). The Theatre in Ulster: A survey of the dramatic movement in Ulster from 1902 until the present day. London: Gill and Macmillan. pp. 90–91. ISBN 0-7171-0569-5.
  6. ^ "The Sparrow's Fall". PlayographyIreland. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  7. ^ a b c d "Colin Blakely". The Daily Telegraph. No. 41016. 8 May 1987. p. 16.
  8. ^ "1866 Murder Trial Still Compels". The Times. No. 54625. 23 November 1959. p. 6.
  9. ^ Pryce-Jones, Alan (29 November 1959). "March to the Scaffold". The Observer. p. 15.
  10. ^ a b Cushman, Robert (30 October 1977). "Rampaging from Naples to Norwich". The Guardian. p. 31.
  11. ^ Cook, Judith (12 October 1972). "Vision of Violence". The Guardian. p. 10.
  12. ^ a b c Hartnoll 1993, p. 52.
  13. ^ "Moscow to See the National Theatre". The Times. No. 56342. 8 June 1965. p. 13.
  14. ^ Wardle, Irving (27 October 1973). "Olivier: the unsatisfied man". The Times. No. 58924. p. 11.
  15. ^ Cook, Judith (1976). The National Theatre. London: Harrap. p. 42. ISBN 0-245-52682-X.
  16. ^ Billington, Michael (12 July 1989). "First lord of the stage". The Guardian. p. 21.
  17. ^ (registration required) Tynan, Kenneth (1966). "The Actor: Tynan Interviews Olivier". Tulane Drama Review. 11 (2): 71–101. JSTOR 1125187. Retrieved 15 March 2026.
  18. ^ "Olivier Winners 1977". Olivier Awards. Retrieved 14 January 2025.
  19. ^ Wickham, Phil. "This Sporting Life (1963)". Screenonline. Retrieved 18 March 2026.
  20. ^ Malcolm, Derek (20 May 1983). "Triumph of the till". The Guardian. p. 16.
  21. ^ Anderson, Lindsay (2004). Sutton, Paul (ed.). Lindsay Anderson: The Diaries. London: Methuen. p. 100. ISBN 0-413-77397-3.
  22. ^ Moat, Janet. "Morgan - A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966)". Screenonline. Retrieved 18 March 2026.
  23. ^ Ford, Christopher (20 April 1976). "The Equus stampede". The Guardian. p. 10.
  24. ^ a b "Supporting Actor". Bafta. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
  25. ^ Palmer, Scott (1993). The Films of Agatha Christie. London: B.T. Batsford. pp. 57, 76, 78. ISBN 0-7134-7205-7.
  26. ^ a b c Palmer, Scott (1988). British Film Actors' Credits, 1895-1987. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. p. 70. ISBN 0-89950-316-0.
  27. ^ "Young Winston". afi.com. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  28. ^ "The Pink Panther Strikes Again". afi.com. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  29. ^ "The Dogs of War". afi.com. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  30. ^ "Nijinsky". afi.com. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  31. ^ Gilbert, W. Stephen (1995). Fight and Kick and Bite: The Life and Work of Dennis Potter. London: Hodder and Stoughton. pp. 176–180. ISBN 0-340-64047-2.
  32. ^ "The Way We Live Now". BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 18 March 2026.
  33. ^ a b Trewin, J.C. (12 May 1987). "Colin Blakely". The Independent. No. 184. p. 12.
  34. ^ Brooke, Michael. "Antony and Cleopatra (1981)". Screenonline. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  35. ^ Brooke, Michael. "King Lear (1983)". Screenonline. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  36. ^ Williams, Bob (2 November 1985). "Cops 'n' robbers steal the show". The Times. No. 62285. p. 37.
  37. ^ "Memorial Service". The Times. No. 62830. 25 July 1987. p. 10.
  38. ^ Lawson, Mark (8 May 1987). "Actor Colin Blakely dies aged 56". The Independent. No. 181. p. 3.
  39. ^ "In Memoriam Colin Blakely". The Independent. No. 182. 9 May 1987. p. 10.
  40. ^ Billington, Michael (8 May 1987). "Power of the player". The Guardian. p. 19.
  41. ^ a b "Actor". Bafta. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
  42. ^ "Olivier Winners 1977". Olivier Awards. Retrieved 20 February 2025.

Bibliography

  • Hartnoll, Phyllis (1993). The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-192-82574-2.
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