Anthony Bushell (actor)

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Anthony Bushell (born May 19, 1904 in Westerham , United Kingdom , † April 2, 1997 in Oxford , United Kingdom) was a British actor in stage, film and television and a director in film and television.

Live and act

Bushell attended Magdalen College School and Hertford College in Oxford. He received his artistic training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his stage debut in 1924 in Sardou's play Diplomacy at the Adelphi Theater in London . In 1927/28 Bushell went on tour to the USA with the play Her Cardboard Lover as a partner of the famous colleague Jeanne Eagels . In 1928 he met the US actress Zelma O'Neal (1903-1989), both married in New York on November 22, 1928. At that time, Anthony Bushell was engaged on Broadway in W. Somerset Maugham's The Sacred Flame . Well-known colleague George Arliss saw Bushell on stage and made sure that the young colleague from England got the role of Charles Deeford in the early sound film Disraeli .

Bushell stayed in Hollywood for the next three years, sequencing one film after the next. Until 1932 he could be seen alongside popular American and European colleagues such as Erich von Stroheim , Edward G. Robinson , Douglas Fairbanks junior , Myrna Loy and even Pola Negri . With the war drama Journey's End, Bushell even took part in a veritable classic in 1930. Back in England, Anthony Bushell continued his stage and film career in 1932. It was here that the costume film adventure The Scarlet Flower , where he played Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, became his most famous (and also most successful) pre-war film in 1934 . At the beginning of the war in 1939, Bushell took up arms, served in the Welsh Guards and was deployed in the Guards Armored Division at the head of a tank unit. Back in civilian life, Bushell's career got a boost when he met young colleague Laurence Olivier , the rising star in London's theatrical sky.

Olivier hired Bushell as his general manager and production assistant for his 1947 Hamlet film, where Bushell also briefly appeared in front of the camera. Shortly afterwards, in 1949, Bushell directed the English version of the Austrian original Der Engel mit der Trosaune , The Angel with the Trumpet , his first cinema work. Two further films (most recently the 1960 hammer film Terror of the Tongs about a criminal Chinese secret society with Christopher Lee as the predecessor of his later Fu Man Chu part) and a series of episodes for British television series between 1959 and 1962 (including Dangerous Businesses, Simon Templar , secret mission for John Drake and Sir Francis Drake - The Queen's Pirate , which he also produced) should follow. Bushell remained connected to Olivier and always helped his famous colleague (unnamed) in directing a film when director Olivier also acted as a star in front of the camera (such as 1955 in Richard III. And 1956 in The Prince and the Dancer ).

His main occupation, however, remained that of an actor on stage and in front of the camera. Bushell was used there whenever it was necessary to appoint high-ranking officers, diplomats and ministers as well as representatives of the nobility. He was seen in the 1950s as a major, sometimes as a general, but also as King Arthur in the knightly film Under Black Visor , as British ambassador in Montevideo, Millington Drake, in the war episode of 1939, battleship Graf Spee, or as captain of the “Carpathia” in the 1912 shipwreck drama, The Titanic's Last Night . After his final retirement from work as an actor and director (1964), hardly anything was heard from Bushell. For a while he was director of the Monte Carlo Golf Club .

Filmography

  • 1929: Disraeli
  • 1929: The Show of Shows
  • 1930: Journey's End
  • 1930: Three Faces East
  • 1931: The Royal Bed
  • 1931: Chances
  • 1931: late edition (Five Star Final)
  • 1932: Around a princely crown (A Woman Commands)
  • 1932: Shop Angel
  • 1932: Vanity Fair
  • 1932: Escapade
  • 1932: Sally Bishop
  • 1932: The Midshipmaid
  • 1933: The Ghoul
  • 1933: I Was a Spy (I Was a Spy)
  • 1933: Channel Crossing
  • 1933: Red Wagon
  • 1934: Forbidden Territory
  • 1934: The Scarlet Flower (The Scarlet Pimpernel)
  • 1934: Lilies of the Field
  • 1935: Admirals All
  • 1936: Dusty Ermine
  • 1936: Dark Journey
  • 1937: Farewell Again
  • 1937: The Angelus
  • 1937: The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel
  • 1938: The Rebel Son
  • 1939: The Arsenal Stadium Mystery
  • 1939: The Lion Has Wings
  • 1944: For Those in Peril
  • 1948: Hamlet (also production assistant)
  • 1948: Experts from the back room (The Small Back Room) (also production manager)
  • 1949: The Angel with the Trumpet
  • 1950: Your Secret (The Miniver Story)
  • 1951: The Long Dark Hall
  • 1951: High Treason
  • 1952: Who Goes There!
  • 1953: The Red Beret
  • 1954: Under a black visor (The Black Knight)
  • 1954: Flames over the Far East (The Purple Plain)
  • 1956: The Black Tent
  • 1956 Bhowani Junction (Bhowani Junction)
  • 1956: Panzerschiff Graf Spee (The Battle of the River Plate)
  • 1957: Bitter was the victory (Bitter Victory)
  • 1957: ... because the wind cannot read (The Wind Cannot Read)
  • 1958: The Last Night of the Titanic (A Night to Remember)
  • 1958–59: Quatermass and the Pit (TV series)
  • 1959: Desert Mice
  • 1960: The Queen's Guards
  • 1963: All That Jazz (episode of a TV series)
  • 1964: Studio '64: The Crunch (episode of a TV series)

as a film and television director:

literature

  • Ephraim Katz : The Film Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. Revised by Fred Klein and Ronald Dean Nolen. New York 2001, p. 200 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bushell, Anthony
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ascherson, Dorothy Renée (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theater and film actor
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Westerham (Kent) , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1997
Place of death Oxford , UK