Wilfrid Hyde-White

Wilfrid Hyde-White
Hyde-White in Ada (1961)
Born	12 May 1903(1903-05-12) Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England
Died	6 May 1991 (aged 87) Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States
Occupation	Film, television actor
Spouse(s)	Blanche Glynne (1927-1948) Ethel Drew (1957-1991) (his death)

Wilfrid Hyde-White (12 May 1903 – 6 May 1991) was an English character actor.

Early life and career

Hyde-White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought. He was educated at Marlborough College, where he decided on an acting career — his uncle was the actor J. Fisher White. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his stage début as Maitland in the Evans-Valentine hit comedy Tons of Money (1922) at Ryde, Isle of Wight, and his London début as a juror in Beggar on Horseback (1925) at the Queen's. On 17 December 1927, he married Blanche Hope Aitken (b. 1896/1897), who used the stage name Blanche Glynne; they had one son.

He worked steadily on the stage, including a tour of South Africa in 1932 before making his film debut, in Josser on the Farm credited as "Hyde White" in 1934. He appeared in the George Formby comedy Turned Out Nice Again in 1941 and after a memorable supporting role in The Third Man, he became a fixture in British films of the 1950s. Two-Way Stretch probably shows best the more roguish side to some of the characters he played in this period. Hyde-White's debonair, often roguish charm was instantly recognizable; ‘his unfailing imperturbability and unruffled acceptance of every eventuality made him an ideal choice for light comedy of the drawing room school’^[1]. From 1962 to 1965 he also starred in the BBC radio comedy The Men from the Ministry.

After the death of his wife in 1957, Hyde-White married the American actress Ethel Korenman (stage name Ethel Drew). They had a son, the actor Alex Hyde-White, and a daughter.

My Fair Lady

Hyde-White was increasingly busy on screen, usually as lords, gentlemen, or conmen, often "smallish roles which he somehow succeeded in making appear bigger,"^[1] such as The Browning Version as the headmaster, and in his own favourite role, as the bogus Reverend Fowler (alias "Soapy" Stevens) in Two Way Stretch. In that year he was in Hollywood for Let's Make Love with Marilyn Monroe, and many films in the film capital followed. In particular, he co-starred in My Fair Lady from the Lerner and Loewe musical as Colonel Pickering, the avuncular companion of Rex Harrison's Professor Higgins. It was a role which brought him international recognition.

He continued to act on the stage, and played opposite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra in 1951. He also appeared on Broadway and was nominated for two Tony Awards as best actor.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he featured in the US TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Battlestar Galactica and The Associates.

But it was television movies and guest appearances which were to keep him busy from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Very few were of particular note, but he invariably radiated droll good humour with an impeccable style. That style, supplemented by conversation punctuated with many a "ho-ho", and "dear fellow", and a tapping of the nose with the forefinger, had been expensive to maintain in real life, exemplified by Rolls-Royces, racehorses, and mistresses, which led to his being declared bankrupt in London in 1979.^[1] His wife left him and, chastened by the experience, he managed to give up his inveterate gambling on horses for a year, becoming even busier on television.^[2]

Later career

He appeared in two episodes of the mystery series Columbo, starring Peter Falk as the rumpled detective. Although the first, Dagger of the Mind (1972), was set in England and concerned Columbo paying a visit to Scotland Yard, Hyde White's ongoing tax problems in Britain meant that, unlike other cast members Falk, Honor Blackman, Richard Basehart, Bernard Fox, John Fraser and Arthur Malet, he was unable to take part in location filming in the U.K. His scenes as a butler were filmed instead in California, at a supposed country house. ^[3]

His second episode, Last Salute to the Commodore (1976), as a lawyer, was less problematic, directed by fellow exile Patrick McGoohan.

His career was somewhat revived by the television series The Associates, in which he played the senior partner of a New York law firm. He also memorably portrayed Barkley, an employee of wealthy businessman U.S. Bates (Jackie Gleason) in the film The Toy. His last film appearance was in the British/West German co-production Fanny Hill.

Final years and death

In 1985, White became a resident of the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, for his last few years being almost bedridden. He died of congestive heart failure on 6 May 1991 (6 days before his 88th birthday), survived by his wife, son and daughter Juliet.

Selected filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wilfrid Hyde-White

• Wilfrid Hyde-White at the Internet Movie Database
• Wilfrid Hyde-White's Gravesite