Donald Wolfit

Sir Donald Wolfit (born Donald Woolfitt; 20 April 1902 – 17 February 1968) was an English actor-manager, known for his touring productions of Shakespeare. He was especially renowned for his portrayal of King Lear.

Born to a conventional middle-class family in Nottinghamshire, Wolfit was stage-struck from an early age. His debut was at the Robin Hood Opera House at Averham to which he cycled from school to join the theatre rep company. After a brief spell as a teacher he joined the touring company of the actor-manager Charles Doran and later that of Fred Terry. He made his London début in 1924 and simplified the spelling of his surname from Woolfitt to Wolfit.

In 1929 Wolfit joined Lilian Baylis's company at the Old Vic but developed a strong antipathy to the leading man, John Gielgud, and left the company after a season. He joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre companies for the festivals of 1936 and 1937, in thirteen major roles, winning excellent reviews for his performance as Hamlet. He then set up his own touring company, taking the plays of Shakespeare and others round Britain and from time to time overseas. He continued to appear in the West End and made several films but his main concern was for his touring company. Its standards were criticised but several members moved on to greater fame, including Harold Pinter and Brian Rix.

Life and career

Early years

Wolfit was born at New Balderton, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, on 20 April 1902, the second son and fourth of five children of William Pearce Woolfitt and his wife Emma, née Tomlinson. It was a conventional household; Woolfitt senior was an Anglican churchgoer, a Conservative supporter and a Freemason. From his early childhood Wolfit wanted to become an actor, despite his father's disapproval.

After education at Magnus Grammar School in Newark he was briefly a schoolmaster in Eastbourne before passing an audition for the actor-manager Charles Doran. Doran's touring company was a training ground for many British actors, including Ralph Richardson, Cecil Parker, Edith Sharpe, Norman Shelley, Abraham Sofaer and FrancisL Sullivan. Wolfit's début role, at the Theatre Royal, York on 13 September 1920, was Biondello in Doran's production of The Taming of The Shrew. Between his engagement with Doran and his West End début in 1924 he toured with the companies of Alexander Marsh and later Fred Terry. For the rest of his life Wolfit acknowledged his debt to the latter for what he had learnt from him.

Wolfit made his London début on 26 November 1924 at the New Theatre, as Phirous in Matheson Lang's production of The Wandering Jew. He appeared in supporting roles in West End productions, and at St George's, Westminster, on 16 April 1928, he married an actress, Chris Frances Castor, with whom he had a daughter Margaret Wolfit, who was also an actress. The marriage lasted until 1933, when the couple divorced.

In 1929 Wolfit joined Lilian Baylis's company at the Old Vic and played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Cassius in Julius Caesar, Touchstone in As You Like It, Macduff in Macbeth and Claudius in Hamlet. He firmly believed that Shakespeare should be taken to the people and used West End appearances and films to subsidise his touring company. After the war he continued his annual tours in Britain and in 1947 he presented two successful tours of Canada, a season in New York and a London season at the Savoy Theatre. The Stage said of his performance in King Lear, "There is no acting in our theatre to-day as magnificent as that of Donald Wolfit when he plays Lear" but his productions had cheap costumes and scenery and his company was below his own standard of acting. Among the audience during this season was the young Bernard Levin, who later wrote that although "Wolfit and his dreadful company ... horribly travestied Shakespeare" they nevertheless enabled young people to come to know and love the plays and for this Levin held Wolfit's memory in high honour. Levin recalled Wolfit's customary curtain call, "with the old megalomanic, as he thanked the audience, indulging in the same exhausted clutch of the curtain", which Stephen Potter said he did whether he had been "laying himself out with Lear or trotting through twenty minutes of Touchstone".

In 1950 Wolfit was appointed CBE. In that year Tyrone Guthrie invited him to return to the Old Vic to play Lear, Timon of Athens, Lord Ogleby in The Clandestine Marriage and Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. He had great success in these roles but according to Harwood he "chafed at performing in a company other than his own and surrounded by excellent supporting actors". He quarrelled with Guthrie and left the company.

In 1957 Wolfit announced his retirement as an actor-manager, but after his knighthood in that year he emerged from retirement and undertook one final tour under his own management..

Life and career

Early years

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

External links