Lionel Jeffries

Lionel Jeffries
Lionel Charles Jeffries (10 June 1926 – 19 February 2010) was an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He appeared primarily in films and received a Golden Globe Award nomination during his acting career.
Early life
Jeffries was born in Forest Hill, south London. Both his parents were social workers with the Salvation Army. As a boy, he attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wimborne Minster in Dorset.
In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and served in Burma at the Rangoon radio station during the Second World War, being awarded the Burma Star. (He blamed the humidity there for his hair loss at the age of 19.) He also served as a captain in the Royal West African Frontier Force.
Career
He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield, Staffordshire for two years and appeared in early British television plays.
Jeffries built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself, such as the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries was actually six months younger than Van Dyke.
His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), Murder Ahoy! (opposite Margaret Rutherford), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967).
Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films, including a well-regarded version of The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972). He was a member of the British Catholic Stage Guild.
Jeffries had a negative attitude towards television and avoided the medium for many years. He reluctantly appeared on television in an acting role in the 1980 London Weekend Television Dennis Potter drama Cream in My Coffee and realised that television production values were now little different from those in the film industry; as a result he developed a belated career in television. He appeared in an episode of the Thames Television/ITV comedy drama Minder in 1983 as Cecil Caine, an eccentric widower, and in an episode of Inspector Morse in 1990 (Central Television/Zenith/ITV).
He starred as Tom (Thomas Maddisson) in the Thames/ITV situation comedy Tom, Dick and Harriet with Ian Ogilvy and Brigit Forsyth. During location filming with Ogilvy for a 1983 episode, a stunt involving a car and a lake went very badly wrong, ending up with Jeffries only just managing to get out of the car's front window before the vehicle sank in of water.
Retirement and death
Jeffries retired from acting in 2001 and his health declined in the following years. He died on 19 February 2010, at a nursing home in Poole, Dorset. He had suffered from vascular dementia for the last twelve years of his life. He was 83.
He was married to Eileen Mary Walsh from 1951 until his death. They had a son and two daughters. His son Ty Jeffries is a composer, lyricist and cabaret artist. Lionel Jeffries' granddaughter is the novelist and playwright Amy Mason.
His name is mentioned before the ending titles in the film The First Men in the Moon, released in 2010: "For Lionel Jeffries 1926–2010".
Complete filmography
As actor
Stage Fright (1950) – Bald RADA Student (uncredited)
Will Any Gentleman...? (1953) – Mr. Frobisher
The Black Rider (1954) – Martin Bremner
The Colditz Story (1955) – Harry Tyler
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) – Blake
No Smoking (1955) – George Pogson
All for Mary (1955) – Maitre D', Hotel
Windfall (1955) – Arthur Lee
Jumping for Joy (1956) – Bert Benton
Bhowani Junction (1956) – Lt. Graham McDaniel
The Baby and the Battleship (1956) – George
Eyewitness (1956) – Man in Pub
Lust for Life (1956) – Dr. Peyron
High Terrace (1956) – Monkton
Up in the World (1957) – Wilson
The Man in the Sky (1957) – Keith
Doctor at Large (1957) – Dr. Hatchet
Hour of Decision (1957) – Elvin Main
The Vicious Circle (1957) – Geoffrey Windsor
Barnacle Bill (1957) – Garrod
Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) – Joe Mangan
Dunkirk (1958) – Colonel – Medical Officer
Charles and Mary (1958, TV Movie) – George Dyer
Up the Creek (1958) – Steady Barker
The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) – Fritz
Law and Disorder (1958) – Major Proudfoot
Orders to Kill (1958) – Interrogator
Girls at Sea (1958) – Harry, the Tourist
Behind the Mask (1958) – Walter Froy
Further Up the Creek (1958) – Steady Barker
Nowhere to Go (1958) – Pet Shop Clerk (uncredited)
Idle on Parade (1959) – Bertie
The Nun's Story (1959) – Dr. Goovaerts
Bobbikins (1959) – Gregory Mason
Please Turn Over (1959) – Ian Howard
Two-Way Stretch (1960) – Chief P.O. Crout
Jazz Boat (1960) – Sergeant Thompson
Life is a Circus (1960) – Genie
Let's Get Married (1960) – Marsh
The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) – John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry
Tarzan the Magnificent (1960) – Ames
Fanny (1961) – Monsieur Brun (The Englishman)
The Hellions (1961) – Luke Billings
Operation Snatch (1962) – Evans
Mrs. Gibbon's Boys (1962) – Lester Gibbons
The Notorious Landlady (1962) – Inspector Oliphant
Kill or Cure (1962) – Det. Insp. Hook
The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) – Inspector Fred 'Nosey' Parker
Call me Bwana (1963) – Ezra
The Scarlet Blade (1963) – Col. Judd
The Long Ships (1964) – Aziz
First Men in the Moon (1964) – Cavor / Joseph Cavor
Murder Ahoy! (1964) – Captain Sydney De Courcy Rhumstone
The Truth About Spring (1965) – 'Cark' / Cark
You Must Be Joking! (1965) – Sgt. Maj. McGregor
The Secret of My Success (1965) – Insp. Hobart / Baron von Lukenberg / The Earl of Aldershot / President Esteda
The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966) – Stanley Farquhar
Drop Dead Darling (1966) – Parker
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (1967) – Airport Commander
Camelot (1967) – King Pellinore
Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) – Sir Charles Dillworthy
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) – Grandpa Potts
12 + 1 (1969) – Randomhouse
Twinky (1970) – Solicitor
Eyewitness (1970) – Grandpa
The Railway Children (1970) – Malcolm (uncredited)
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) – Inspector Ralph Willoughby
Royal Flash (1975) – Kraftstein
What Changed Charley Farthing? (1976) – Houlihan
Wombling Free (1978) – Womble (voice)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) – General Sapt
Cream in My Coffee (1980, TV Movie) – Bernard Wilsher
Better Late Than Never (1983) – Bertie Hargreaves
Abel's Island (1988 short) – Gower (voice)
Danny, the Champion of the World (1989, TV Movie) – Mr. Snoddy
A Chorus of Disapproval (1989) – Jarvis Huntley-Pike
First and Last (1989, TV Movie) – Laurence
Ending Up (1989, TV Movie) – Shorty
Jekyll & Hyde (1990, TV Movie) – Jekyll's Father
Heaven on Earth (1998, TV Movie) – Isaac Muller
As writer or director
The Railway Children (1970) – director and screenwriter
The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972) – director and screenwriter
Baxter! (1973) – director
Wombling Free (1977) – director and screenwriter
The Water Babies (1978) – director and additional material writer
Nelson's Touch (1979 short) – screenwriter
References
External links
Lionel Jeffries – Daily Telegraph obituary
Lionel Jeffries – Times obituary
1926 births
2010 deaths
20th-century English male actors
English film directors
Alumni of RADA
British Army personnel of World War II
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Deaths from dementia in England
Deaths from vascular dementia
English male film actors
English Roman Catholics
English screenwriters
English male screenwriters
English male stage actors
English male television actors
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry officers
Male actors from Dorset
Military personnel from London
People from Forest Hill, London
People educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Wimborne Minster
Royal West African Frontier Force officers
Audiobook narrators