Leo McKern

Infobox actor
name = Leo McKern


caption =
birthdate = 16 March 1920
birthplace = Sydney, Australia
deathdate = 23 July 2002 (aged 82)
deathplace = Bath, England

Reginald "Leo" McKern AO (16 March 1920 – 23 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British television programs, movies and in over 200 stage roles.

Biography

Early life

McKern was born Reginald McKern in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the son of Vera (née Martin) and Norman Walton McKern. [ [http://www.filmreference.com/film/63/Leo-McKern.html Leo McKern Biography (1920-2002) ] ] After an accident at age 15 he lost his left eye. He first worked as an engineering apprentice, then as an artist, followed by serving in the Australian Army during World War II. [ [http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/script/veteran.asp?ServiceID=A&VeteranID=239734 World War II Nominal Roll] ] During the war, he made his first stage appearance in Sydney in 1944. It is a little known fact that McKern was a direct descendant of a survivor of the Glencoe Massacre.

Career

Having fallen in love with actress Jane Holland, McKern moved to the United Kingdom to be with her and they married in 1946. He soon became a regular performer at London's Old Vic theatre and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now called the Royal Shakespeare Theatre) in Stratford-upon-Avon, despite the difficulties posed by his glass eye and Australian accent. In 1949, he played Forester in "Love's Labours Lost" at the Old Vic. His most notable Shakespearean role was as Iago to Anthony Quayle's "Othello" in 1952. On the West End in London, McKern originated the role of the Common Man for Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" in 1960, but for the show's Broadway production, he was shifted to the role of Thomas Cromwell, as Cromwell, the prosecutor of Sir Thomas More, which he would reprise in the film version. He also memorably played Subtle in Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" in 1962.

McKern's film debut came in 1952's "Murder in the Cathedral". His other notable film appearances included the Beatles film "Help!" (1965), the Academy Award-winning adaptation of "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), "The Omen" (1976), and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981). He was given the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for "Travelling North" (1987). In "Monsignor Quixote" (1989), he co-starred as Sancho Zancas with Alec Guinness as Father Quixote.

McKern was one of several Number Twos in the 1960s cult classic television series "The Prisoner". Along with Colin Gordon, he was one of only two actors to play Number Two more than once. He first played the character in "The Chimes of Big Ben" and later reprised his role in the final two episodes of the series, "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out". Filming "Once Upon a Time" was a particularly intense experience for McKern and according to "The Prisoner: The Official Companion to the Classic TV Series" by Robert Fairclough, the strain of filming this episode caused McKern to suffer either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack (accounts differ), forcing production to stop for a time.

In 1975, he made his first appearance as his most famous character, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in "Rumpole of the Bailey" in forty-four episodes for seven series on television until 1992. John Mortimer, the writer and creator of the show, created the part with Alistair Sim in mind, but revised his opinion after seeing McKern in the part. Mortimer was to say "He not only played the character Rumpole, he added to it, brightened it and brought it fully to life." [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DF1238F937A15754C0A9649C8B63] New York Times, July 24, 2002] McKern enjoyed the role but had shown concern regarding the fame and how much his life was becoming intertwined with Rumpole's. "McKern was often unhappy, decrying his television fame as an 'insatiable monster'. He stressed that his Peer Gynt was a greater performance and lamented: 'If I get an obit in any paper, they will say, '. . . of course, known to millions as Rumpole'." [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2002/07/24/brkern24.xml Legacy of 'grumpy Rumpole' - Telegraph ] ] In the later series, his daughter Abigail McKern joined the cast as Liz Probert.

McKern was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1983 for his service to the performing arts. [ [http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=870056&search_type=quick&showInd=true It's an Honour] - Officer of the Order of Australia]

In 1987, the investment firm Smith Barney chose McKern to succeed John Houseman as its spokesman. In addition to the change in spokesman, Smith Barney's corporate advertising department decided to tweak the format of the new commercials, the first of which aired in September 1987. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1D91030F935A2575AC0A961948260 Smith Barney In Ad Change] - New York Times, September 16, 1987] However, the public did not like the new commercials nearly as much as they did the famous Houseman ones, and in 1989, Smith Barney switched to a campaign featuring the voice of American actor George C. Scott.

McKern told his daughter Abigail that he suffered from stage fright, which became more difficult to cope with as he grew older. He had also worried that his stout frame would not appeal to audiences. His final acting appearances came in the film "" (1999) and on stage in 2000. Suffering from diabetes and other health problems, he was moved to a nursing home near Bath, Somerset in 2002. He died there a few weeks later at the age of 82. McKern was survived by his wife Jane, daughters Abigail and Harriet, and a grandchild.

In the last decade of his life, McKern also starred in a series of commercials for Lloyds Bank, widely shown on British television, in which he portrayed a character very like Rumpole.

Acting roles

* Horace Rumpole in the TV series "Rumpole of the Bailey"
* Cyril in the film "A Foreign Field" (1993)
* "The Duchess" in a black and white production of Alice In Wonderland
* One of the versions of Number Two in the TV series "The Prisoner". He played the character in "The Chimes of Big Ben", "Once Upon A Time" and "Fall Out".
* Harry Bundage in "Candleshoe"
* Ryan in the film "Ryan's Daughter"
* Thomas Cromwell in the film, "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) (he had played both Cromwell and the Common Man in the play's stage version)
* Clang in the Beatles' movie "Help!"
* A newspaper reporter in the British doomsday film, "The Day the Earth Caught Fire". In this film, his character had a line of dialogue referring to his (real-life) glass eye.
* Paddy Button, the old sailor stranded with two children on a lush tropical island in the 1980 remake of "The Blue Lagoon"
* The Leader of the Opposition in "The Mouse that Roared"
* Imperius, the reclusive priest in the 1985 movie "Ladyhawke"
* Several roles in the late 1950s television version of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (which starred Richard Greene as Robin)
* Professor Moriarty in Gene Wilder's "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother"
* McEvoy in "Web of Evidence" (1959)
* A scientist in the film "X the Unknown"
* Cardinal Leone in the 1968 film "The Shoes of the Fisherman".
* Basil Zaharoff in the television series "Reilly, Ace of Spies"
*Gloucester in the 1984 TV movie "King Lear", opposite Sir Laurence Olivier as King Lear
*Carl Bugenhagen in Richard Donner's "The Omen"
*Herod the Great in the 1978 TV-film "The Nativity"
*Companion to Gwent (a machine intelligence) in the 1975-77 TV series ""

References

External links

*imdb name|id=0571674|name=Leo McKern
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2146615.stm BBC.co.uk: "Rumpole star McKern dies"]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1422476.stm BBC -- Obituary: Leo McKern]