Barry Jones

Barry Cuthbert Jones (6 March 1893 – 1 May 1981) was a Guernsey-born actor best known for his appearances in the plays of Bernard Shaw in Britain, Canada and the US.

Biography Jones was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands on 6 March 1893, the son of William John Jones and his wife Amelia. He was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey. On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he joined the British Army, and served with the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry and Royal Irish Fusiliers until February 1921.

He made his first appearance on the stage at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, with Sir Frank Benson's company in March 1921 as the Clerk of the Court in The Merchant of Venice. After two years touring with the Benson company he went to North America. He played stock engagements in Toronto and Boston. and made his first appearance in New York at the Garrick Theatre (for the Theatre Guild) in April 1924 in Man and the Masses. After playing in those cities and Chicago over the next four years, he entered into partnership with Maurice Colbourne in 1928 and for the next three years they toured Canada and the United States with a repertory mostly consisting of plays by Bernard Shaw – You Never Can Tell, John Bull's Other Island, The Philanderer, The Doctor's Dilemma, Fanny's First Play, Arms and the Man, Candida, Man and Superman, and The Apple Cart – as well as A. A. Milne's The Dover Road and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

After touring the US in 1934 he returned to the West End to play Charles Lankaster in Moonlight is Silver and in 1935 he joined Ivor Novello's company as King Stefan in the musical Glamorous Night. In 1936 he succeeded Ralph Richardson as Emile Delbar in Promise by Henri Bernstein. Later in the year, at the Lyric, he played the title role in Charles the King, written by Colbourne.

Jones also appeared in many films between the early 1930s and the mid-1960s. Several of these were Hollywood films, including Twelve O'Clock High (1949), as Lord Haw-Haw (voice only), and Plymouth Adventure (1952) as William Brewster. Jones normally played supporting roles in films, but he had a rare leading role in Seven Days to Noon (1950), as the villain, Professor Willingdon.

Jones and Colbourne shared a house in Campden Hill, London, and subsequently on Jones's native Guernsey, where Colbourne died on 22 September 1965, aged 71. Jones outlived him by sixteen years, dying at the Guernsey house on 1 May 1981 at the age of 88

Selected filmography

Women Who Play (1932) as Ernest Steele Number Seventeen (1932) as Henry Doyle Arms and the Man (1932) as Captain Bluntschli The Gay Adventure (1936) as Darnton Murder in the Family (1938) as Stephen Osborne Squadron Leader X (1943) as Bruce Fenwick Frieda (1947) as Holliday Dancing with Crime (1947) as Gregory The Calendar (1948) as Sir John Garth Uneasy Terms (1948) as Inspector Gringall That Dangerous Age (1949) as Arnold Cane The Bad Lord Byron (1949) as Colonel Stonhope Twelve O'Clock High (1949) as Lord Haw-Haw (voice, uncredited) Madeleine (1950) as Lord Advocate Seven Days to Noon (1950) as Professor Willingdon The Mudlark (1950) as Speaker (uncredited) The Clouded Yellow (1951) as Nicholas Fenton White Corridors (1951) as Dr. Shoesmith Appointment with Venus (1951) as Provost The Magic Box (1951) as The Bath Doctor Plymouth Adventure (1952) as William Brewster Hamlet (1953) as Polonius Return to Paradise (1953) as Pastor Corbett Prince Valiant (1954) as King Luke Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) as Claudius Brigadoon (1954) as Mr. Lundie The Glass Slipper (1955) as Duke Alexander the Great (1956) as Aristotle War and Peace (1956) as Prince Mikhail Andreevich Rostov Saint Joan (1957) as De Courcelles The Safecracker (1958) as Bennett Carfield The 39 Steps (1959) as Professor Logan Karolina Rijecka (1961) as Admiral A Study in Terror (1965) as Duke of Shires The Heroes of Telemark (1965) as Professor Logan (final film role)

Appearances in TV series

Hallmark Hall of Fame (1953–1961) Robert Montgomery Presents (1955–1956) as Captain Whalley The Saint (1963) as Otis Q. Fennick Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as Patrick Holt The Outer Limits (1963) as Dwight Hartley Martin Chuzzlewit (1964) as Martin Chuzzlewit the Elder The Spread of the Eagle (1963) as Julius Caesar Sherlock Holmes (1965) as Charles Augustus Milverton

Source: Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies published by Harper-Collins –