Sir John Selby Clements, CBE (25 April 1910 – 6 April 1988) was a British actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.
John Clements CBE | |
|---|---|
 John Clements in 1954 | |
| Born | John Selby Clements 25 April 1910 |
| Died | 6 April 1988 (aged 77) |
| Education | St Paul's School, London |
| Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge |
| Years active | 1935–1982 |
| Spouses |
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Biography
editTheatre career
editClements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge.[1] He made his first professional appearance on the stage in 1930, then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company.[2]
In 1935 Clements founded the Intimate Theatre,[3] a combined repertory and try-out venue, at Palmers Green. He appeared in almost 200 plays and also presented a number of plays in the West End as actor-manager-producer.[2]
Clements married the actress Kay Hammond and together they had a critical success with their West End revival of Noël Coward's play Private Lives in 1945.[4] In 1952 they both appeared in Clements's own play The Happy Marriage, an adaptation of Jean Bernard-Luc's Le Complexe de Philemon.[5] Clements starred as Edward Moulton Barrett in the musical Robert and Elizabeth, a successful adaptation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.[6]
In December 1951 Clements directed Man and Superman in the West End, and played the role of John Tanner alongside Allan Cuthbertson.[7]
Clements was the artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre from 1966 to 1973.[8]
The actor John Standing is his stepson.[9]
Film career
edit
As a film actor John Clements played bit parts of increasing size for Alexander Korda's London Films in the 1930s. He made quite an impression opposite Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich in Knight Without Armour as Poushkoff, a sensitive, conflicted young commissar who saves their lives during the Russian Revolution.[10] He came to further prominence when film director Victor Saville chose him to star opposite Ralph Richardson in South Riding (1938).[11] The two actors were reunited in the very successful The Four Feathers (1939).[12]
After that Clements's film career was somewhat intermittent, although he made a series of British war films for Ealing Studios and British Aviation Pictures, such as Convoy (1940), Ships with Wings (1942), Tomorrow We Live (1943) and as Yugoslav guerrilla leader Milosh Petrovitch in Undercover (1943).[13] He had a cameo role (as Advocate General) in Gandhi (1982).[14]
Honours and death
editClements was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1956 and was knighted in 1968.[2] He died in Brighton, East Sussex, in 1988.[8]
Filmography
edit- The Divine Spark (1935) as Florino
- Once in a New Moon (1935) as Edward Teale
- Ticket of Leave (1936) as Lucky Fisher
- Things to Come (1936) as The Airman (uncredited)
- Rembrandt (1936) as Govaert Flinck
- Knight Without Armour (1937) as Poushkoff
- I, Claudius (1937) as Valente
- South Riding (1938) as Joe Astell
- Housemaster (1938) as Undetermined Minor Role (uncredited)
- Star of the Circus (1938) as Paul Houston
- The Four Feathers (1939) as Harry Faversham
- Convoy (1940) as Lieutenant Cranford
- This England (1941) as John Rookeby
- Ships with Wings (1941) as Lieutenant Dick Stacey
- Tomorrow We Live (1943) as Jean Baptiste
- Undercover (1943) as Milosh Petrovitch
- They Came to a City (1944) as Joe Dinmore
- Call of the Blood (1949) as Julius Ikon
- Train of Events (1949) as Raymond Hillary (segment "The Composer")
- The Silent Enemy (1958) as The Admiral
- The Mind Benders (1963) as Major Hall
- Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) as General Helmut von Moltke
- Gandhi (1982) as Advocate General
- Top Secret! (1984) as East German Dignitary (uncredited) (final film role)
Selected theatre credits
edit- The Venetian (1931)
- Edward, My Son (1949)
- And This Was Odd (1951)
- The Happy Marriage (1952)
- The Little Glass Clock (1954)
References
edit- ^ "Sir John Selby Clements". Person Page - 18344. thepeerage.com. 3 February 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
- ^ a b c "Sir John Clements, Stage Veteran, Dies at 77". 10 April 1988 – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ Bristol, University of. "John Clements Archive | Theatre Collection | University of Bristol". bristol.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
- ^ Coward, Noël (21 July 2014). Future Indefinite. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781408191477 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Kay Hammond and John Clements in The Happy Marriage | Sommerlad, Gilbert | V&A Search the Collections". V and A Collections. 8 March 2020.
- ^ "Production of Robert and Elizabeth | Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
- ^ Wearing, J. P. (16 September 2014). The London Stage 1950-1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780810893085 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b "Obituaries : Sir John Clements, 77; Leading British Shakespearean Actor". Los Angeles Times. 10 April 1988.
- ^ "John Standing – Broadway Cast & Staff". IBDB.
- ^ "Knight Without Armour". Variety. 21 December 1936.
- ^ "South Riding (1938) - Victor Saville | Cast and Crew". AllMovie.
- ^ "BFI Screenonline: Four Feathers, The (1939)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
- ^ "John Clements". BFI. Archived from the original on 27 May 2018.
- ^ "John Clements | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos". AllMovie.