Glyn Idris Jones (27 April 1931 – 2 April 2014) was a South African actor, writer and director. In a career spanning almost sixty years, his theatrical career encompassed work in the UK, on the continent, and in the United States.
Early years
Glyn Idris Jones, actor, director, writer, and teacher, born in Durban, South Africa on 27 April 1931, of Italian and Welsh parentage.
After university and drama school, he toured South Africa as an actor with the National Theatre of South Africa before hitch-hiking and working his passage to London. On arriving in England in 1953, he took a job with The Sunday Times, then Kemsley Newspapers, and started writing plays in his spare time. His first acting engagement in the UK was in a summer season of weekly rep at the old Tivoli Theatre, New Brighton; extra work on television and a second summer season, this time on the Isle of Wight followed. Out of work periods saw him working in pubs, at Joe Lyons' Cadby Hall, for a small-time publisher and cleaning people's houses.
Acting
As an actor in London he appeared in Reunion In Vienna at The Piccadilly, The Gorky Brigade Royal Court, The Great Society, Something Burning, Treasure Island, all at the Mermaid, Streamers at The Roundhouse, A Coat Of Varnish and Captain Brassbound's Conversion at The Haymarket, Measure For Measure at The Open Space, Safendas at The Almost Free. He has also played leading roles in many provincial theatres, on tours and on the continent. His television appearances have been numerous and he has also worked in film and on radio, his credits being too lengthy to mention. His last UK television appearance was for the BBC when he gave a chilling performance as the paedophile murderer, Sidney Cooke in The Lost Boys. He also appeared in two episodes of The Diary of Samuel Pepys.
Whilst working as actor he continued to write and had sixteen plays produced, the first in England being "Oh Brother" in Ipswich in 1962. This was a rare example of a Doctor Who writer also acting on the programme.
Directing
He directed at a number of theatres in the UK, at RADA and, in America at James Madison University in Virginia where he also acted in a number of productions, Dodge in Buried Child, Argon in The Imaginary Invalid and Eddie Carbone in A View From the Bridge, and for a summer season at the Wayside Theatre, Virginia he directed two plays, Tribute and The Innocents and acted in three: Barefoot in the Park, Private Lives and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He performed in Neil Simon's Fools and The Fantasticks in dinner theatre and was invited by Furman University to play Dysart in Equus and work with students on Shakespeare.
Writing
He wrote the screenplay for the Oscar Nominated Columbia Film, A King's Story on the life of the Duke of Windsor Edward VIII. He was chief writer and script editor for 20th Century Fox's most successful children's series, Here Come the Double Deckers!.