Neil North; Star of 'The Winslow Boy' (1948) who took part in the 1999 remake
Hyfler/Rosner
Star of 'The Winslow Boy' (1948) who took part in the 1999
remake
The Independent
19 March 2007
Tom Vallance
Neil Dermot North, actor and antique dealer: born Quetta,
India 18 October 1932; died London 7 March 2007.
Neil North played young Ronnie Winslow, a naval cadet
accused of stealing a postal order, in the 1948 screen
version of Terence Rattigan's hit play The Winslow Boy.
Fifty years later he played the First Lord of the Admiralty
in the 1999 remake. "It would be interesting," states The
Encyclopaedia of British Film, "to know what he was doing in
the intervening half-century." Though he never totally gave
up acting, North became a prominent antique dealer during
those years, while enjoying a colourful life characterised
by uncommon enterprise.
Born in 1932 in the Indian province of Quetta, Baluchistan,
he was the youngest of three boys - his twin brothers were
three years older. His father was an officer in the Indian
Army and his mother, born Audrey Martineau, was a descendant
of the Huguenots.
His brother Desmond recalls that their education was
erratic, at a series of schools in England and India, until
the Second World War when North became a pupil at King's
College, Canterbury. There he studied drama, and, when the
college staged a production of Laurie Lee's play Peasant's
Priest (set in the Chapter House of the cathedral) for the
Canterbury Festival in 1947, North was given a prominent
role as the Boy King, Richard II.
Lee later disowned the play, the only one he wrote, which
dealt with the revolutionary John Ball and the Peasants'
Revolt of 1381, but its director, Bernard Miles, was
impressed by North and recommended him to the producer
Anatole de Grunwald and director Anthony Asquith, who had
been searching public schools for a boy to play young Ronnie
for a film version of The Winslow Boy.
Based on the true case of a 13-year-old naval cadet, George
Archer-Shee, who was expelled in 1908 for the alleged theft
of a postal order, the film had a distinguished cast,
including Cedric Hardwicke as Ronnie's father, who wrecks
his health taking the case to the Admiralty and the House of
Commons, Margaret Leighton as the boy's suffragette sister,
and Robert Donat in the prime role of the QC who takes up
the fight. North displayed a convincing mixture of spunk,
mischief and sensitivity as the boy, particularly in the
famous scene in which Donat browbeats him with a fierce
interrogation before declaring to his parents, "The boy is
plainly innocent. I accept the brief."
North enjoyed the experience and determined to remain an
actor. He was in Britannia Mews (1948) with Maureen O'Hara,
played a schoolboy in Mr Perrin and Mr Traill (1958) and in
Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951), and had a small role in The
Deep Blue Sea (1955) before his career changed course when
he became liable for National Service.
After his failure to report brought a visit from the
authorities, he climbed out of a window and clambered across
the rooftops to escape, and with the help of a resourceful
actor's agent took a boat to Ireland, eventually getting to
Italy, where, ironically, he found acting roles in
recruitment films.
North was always an enterprising lad - his niece Sophie
remembers stories of his collecting broken glass in
Canterbury after the pubs had emptied on a Sunday and
selling the pieces to tourists as parts of the cathedral's
stained-glass windows blown out during the Second World War.
He would also tell tourists that a record of visitors was
being kept and would ask them to write their names and
addresses in a notebook he carried. Years later, he used the
book to contact people when he was in America and thereby
enjoyed enormous hospitality.
He had settled in the United States after setting up an
antique business with a millionaire lover, Charles Gibson,
whose family had made a fortune in shrimping. The two had a
shop in New York at East 57th Street, North and Gibson,
which became a prime lure for collectors. They lived in a
beautiful house near West Point, overlooking the Hudson
River, and North, who called himself Lord North (which
helped open doors), became noted for his ability to find
rare pieces. His brother says, "I'm finding letters
addressed to 'Lord North' or 'The Right Honourable Neil
North'."
North never gave up acting, and during the 1950s appeared on
several television shows, including Robert Montgomery
Presents and You Are There. He starred in the Kraft Theatre
adaptation of Walter Lord's account of the Titanic's
sinking, A Night To Remember (1955), playing Second Officer
Lightoller, the role played by Kenneth More in the 1958
screen version. After he and Gibson parted, North moved to
Palm Beach, Florida, where he raced classic speed boats,
then moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1980.
On his return to the UK, he telephoned the agent John
Hubbard, whom he had learned was casting a new screen
version of The Winslow Boy. "He rang to tell me he had been
in the earlier version," Hubbard recalls, " though he didn't
ask for a part. I was fascinated that he had played Ronnie
all those years ago, and arranged to meet him - he had a
quiet charm, an understated, genial quality and the
attribute of really listening to what you have to say - a
rarity in this business. I took him to a reading for the
director David Mamet without telling him North's history,
and Mamet was highly impressed and cast him on the spot. I
then told him that North had been Ronnie in the Asquith film
and he thought that was a wonderful bonus."
As First Lord of the Admiralty, one of the boy's
prosecutors, North was an imposing presence, as he was when
later playing one of the ballet school examining committee
in the 2000 film Billy Elliot.
North's final screen appearance was in a "pub" scene, filmed
in Battersea, for Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd (2007).
Tom Vallance
aka Bob
magnanimously proffered:
>Neil North
>Star of 'The Winslow Boy' (1948) who took part in the 1999
>remake
>
>The Independent
>19 March 2007
>Tom Vallance
>
>
>Neil Dermot North, actor and antique dealer: born Quetta,
>India 18 October 1932; died London 7 March 2007.
>
>Neil North played young Ronnie Winslow, a naval cadet
>accused of stealing a postal order, in the 1948 screen
>version of Terence Rattigan's hit play The Winslow Boy.
>Fifty years later he played the First Lord of the Admiralty
>in the 1999 remake. "It would be interesting," states The
>Encyclopaedia of British Film, "to know what he was doing in
>the intervening half-century." Though he never totally gave
>up acting, North became a prominent antique dealer during
>those years, while enjoying a colourful life characterised
>by uncommon enterprise.
Photos of Neil North:
1. As Ronnie Winslow:
http://www.thegreatescapeonline.com/nonmuze/images/MOVIE_TVFOTOPHOTO02658PHOTOBC.jpg
2. IMDb:
http://imdb.com/gallery/hh/0636043/neilnorth.jpg.html
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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Brad Ferguson
<rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> North was always an enterprising lad - his niece Sophie
> remembers stories of his collecting broken glass in
> Canterbury after the pubs had emptied on a Sunday and
> selling the pieces to tourists as parts of the cathedral's
> stained-glass windows blown out during the Second World War.
Okay, for this and the draft evasion, they should have knighted him.