Esme Percy

Saville Esmé Percy (8 August 1887 – 17 June 1957) was an English actor and director, widely associated with the plays of Bernard Shaw; he also appeared in forty films between 1930 and 1956.

He studied acting in Paris with Sarah Bernhardt and made a career as a stage actor in England, appearing in the companies of F. R. Benson, William Poel, Herbert Beerbohm Tree and later in his career, Basil Dean and Robert Atkins. He appeared frequently on radio and television, from 1927 until the year of his death, and produced eight BBC Radio adaptations of Shaw plays.

Life and career Early years Saville Esmé Percy was born in London on 8 August 1887. He was educated at Windsor and Brussels, where he decided on a stage career. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and then the Paris Conservatoire, under Georges Berr, Maurice Leloir and Sarah Bernhardt.

Percy joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at His Majesty's Theatre in 1906. In Tree's company Percy played Britannicus in Stephen Phillips's Nero, the Earl of March in Henry IV, Part 1 and Lucius in Julius Caesar.

After spending nearly two years with Annie Horniman's company in Manchester he co-founded a touring company, presenting and appearing in a wide range of plays, including The Voysey Inheritance, The Doctor's Dilemma, The Importance of Being Earnest and Man and Superman. In other wartime productions he played multiple roles in The Tales of Hoffmann (in which one critic compared his singing to that of Henry Lytton) and Lord Caversham in Robert Donat's production of An Ideal Husband with Irene Vanbrugh and Martita Hunt (1943).

Later years After the war Percy played numerous leading parts in plays on radio and television. He co-directed with Gielgud, and played in, The Lady's Not for Burning (1949), produced Shaw's Buoyant Billions at the Malvern Festival, 1949 and subsequently in the West End. He directed James Joyce's Exiles at the Q Theatre (1950) and played Gayev in The Cherry Orchard opposite Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies at the Lyric (1954). Victor in Gigi (New Theatre, 1956; The Stage commented, "Esmé Percy brings to the small part of a man-servant the technique that has won him distinction on a thousand stages"), and finally The Principal in Jean Giraudoux's The Apollo de Bellac with a cast including Richard Pasco, John Osborne, Alan Bates and Robert Stephens.

Percy died in his sleep at the age of 69 in Brighton, where he was in rehearsal for the pre-London try-out of a new play, The Making of Moo. His first participation in a radio drama was in June 1932 as the Evil Angel in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, a play he returned to in 1940, playing Lucifer, and again in 1956, when he played Mephistophilis to the Faustus of Stephen Murray. He appeared in plays, or adaptations of books, ranging from comedies by Aristophanes, Chekhov, Sheridan and Wilde to classics by Dante, Dickens, Euripides, Shakespeare, Spenser and Webster to works by Anouilh, Barrie, Calderon, Henry James, Sardou and Josephine Tey. He appeared in Shaw's The Apple Cart, Man and Superman and Mrs Warren's Profession and produced eight Shaw plays: Back to Methuselah, Caesar and Cleopatra, Heartbreak House, John Bull's Other Island, On the Rocks, The Millionairess, Too True to Be Good, Widowers' Houses and You Never Can Tell.

Television He made his first television appearance in 1937 in scenes from Nancy Price's stage adaptation of Through the Looking-Glass as Humpty Dumpty, and starred the following year as Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi. He appeared in The Lady's Not for Burning with Gielgud and Richard Burton in 1952. One of his last television appearances was in July 1956, when he took part in a discussion programme marking Shaw's centenary, with Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, John Clements, Benn W. Levy and Lionel Hale.

Partial filmography

Murder! (1930) - Handel Fane The Lucky Number (1932) - The Chairman Bitter Sweet (1933) - Hugh Devon Summer Lightning (1933) - Baxter On Secret Service (1933) - Bleuntzli - Reporter Love, Life and Laughter (1934) - Goebschen Nell Gwyn (1934) - Samuel Pepys Lord Edgware Dies (1934) - Duke of Merton Unfinished Symphony (1934) - Huettenbrenner Regal Cavalcade (1935) - Lloyd George It Happened in Paris (1935) - Pommier Abdul the Damned (1935) - Ali - Chief Eunuch Invitation to the Waltz (1935) - Napoleon Bonaparte The Invader (1936) - Jose The Amateur Gentleman (1936) - John Townsend A Woman Alone (1936) - General Petroff Song of Freedom (1936) - Gabriel Donozetti Land Without Music (1936) - Austrian Ambassador Crime Over London (1936) - (uncredited) Accused (1936) - Morel Jump for Glory (1937) - Robinson The Frog (1937) - Philo Johnson Our Fighting Navy (1937) - Diego de Costa The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937) - Sheridan, the playwright Pygmalion (1938) - Count Aristid Karpathy 21 Days (1940) - Henry Wallen Jeannie (1941) Hi Gang! (1941) - Lord Chamberlain The Young Mr. Pitt (1942) - Minor Role (uncredited) Dead of Night (1945) - Antique Dealer (segment "The Haunted Mirror") Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) - Major Domo Lisbon Story (1946) - Mariot The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947) - Vizier