John Laurie

John Laurie was a Scotsman who would play many character roles in his long career - a lot of Scotsmen to be sure - but an enthusiastic and skilled actor in nearly 120 screen roles. He was the son of a mill worker, and studied for a career in architecture which he indeed began. But with World War I he left his position to join the British army. After the war he set his sights in a different direction, training to become an actor by attending the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. His first stage play was in 1921. He honed his skills thereafter (from 1922 to 1939) principally as a Shakespearian actor at the Old Vic in London or at Stratford-upon-Avon - and later the Open Air in Regent's Park. But by 1930 he was giving time to films as well. His first movie was the Sean O'Casey play Juno and the Paycock (1930), one of Alfred Hitchcock's early sound efforts. With his craggy profile and arcing bulbous nose, and rather stern visage (though it could as quickly break into a broad smile), he was right for many a memorable character. Hitchcock made sure of that first off by calling on him again to play the dour, suspicious, and miserly farmer, John Crofter, in The 39 Steps (1935). Laurie became a good friend of another Shakespearean, Laurence Olivier, and the two, Olivier as a lead, were in Hungarian director/producer Paul Czinner's As You Like It (1936). The year 1937 was a busy one, with six films, the most important giving him one of his few leading roles. This was director/screen writer Michael Powell's intriguing The Edge of the World (1937), doubly important in that it was the film that sold Powell to producers like Alexander Korda. The film was shot on location on the remote Shetland isle of Foula, the furthest point of Britain. It dealt with the impact of the modern world on the lives of the inhabitants of an economically decaying island. Into 1938 and 1939 Laurie was involved in British experimental TV movies, that medium to be revisit later frequently. In 1939 he was taped by Alexander Korda for his classic film production of The Four Feathers (1939) in which Laurie, who could fit his Scots voice to any part, played the zealous Mahdi (the Khalifa). He is hardly to be recognized in character.