Peter Copley

Peter Copley (20 May 1915 - 7 October 2008) was a British television, film and stage actor. Copley was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, son of the printmakers, John Copley and Ethel Gabain. He studied acting at the Old Vic school under Harcourt Williams and Murray Macdonald. He made his stage debut as the gaoler in the Old Vic production of The Winter's Tale in 1932, and his West End debut three years later. His wartime naval service (1940-41) was sandwiched between a wide range of theatrical work, including a tour of south America with Edward Stirling (1936), a season at the Gate, Dublin (1939), wartime touring and a spell as director of the Worthing rep (1945). From 1945 to 1950, he was at the centre of Olivier's Old Vic Company at the New Theatre, St Martin's Lane. He would talk about performing in Hamburg immediately after the war - seeing SS men sitting, broken, on the pavement, and finding a copy of Mein Kampf alongside the Bible in a dressing room. Review after review singled Pe