George Murcell (30 October 1918 - 3 December 1998) was a British character actor.
Making his film debut in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate (1956), he went onto carve out a career as snarling villains, in both film and television. His villains could either be dumb henchmen, as in Hell Drivers and Campbell's Kingdom (both 1957), or sophisticated rogues, such as Needle in The Avengers episode You Have Just Been Murdered.
An actor with a wide range he also specialised in foreign characters, including Germans, Russians and South Americans. A number of these roles were in ITC adventure series of the sixties and seventies, such as The Baron; The Saint; The Champions; Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased); The Persuaders; and Jason King.
His roles in films tended to be smaller, these included: The Heroes of Telemark (1965); Kaleidoscope (1966); You Only Live Twice (1967); The Fixer (1968); and The Assassination Bureau (1968).
He also enjoyed a long stage career which included work with such leading lights as Tyrone Guthrie and Peter Brook, and was active in the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the 1970s he acquired a Victorian church in an unglamorous area of north London, which he converted into an Elizabethan-styled theatre; in 1973, he opened it as St. George's Theatre, making it his mission to bring classical plays to an audience which wouldn't otherwise have had the chance. Throughout the seventies and eighties, he continued there as actor and director, often with his wife, actress Elvi Hale.
Also an accomplished musician and linguist.
He died in 1998.
External links
George Murcell at the Internet Movie Database
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Murcell"
Categories: 1925 births | 1998 deaths | British film actors | British television actors
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