Frith Banbury

Frederick Harold Frith Banbury (4 May 1912 – 14 May 2008) was a British theatre actor and director.

Banbury was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 4 May 1912, the son of Rear Admiral Frederick Arthur Frith Banbury and his wife Winifred (née Fink).

While attending Stowe School, Banbury rejected his father's naval background by refusing to join the Officer Training Corps, later being registered as a conscientious objector, enabling him to continue acting throughout the Second World War. He went on to attend Hertford College, Oxford, He trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alongside Joan Littlewood, Rachel Kempson,

Theatrical career Banbury made his first stage appearance on 15 June 1933, playing a walk-on part in If I Were You at the Shaftesbury Theatre. He continued to act through the 1930s and 40s, appearing at such venues as the Ambassadors Theatre, the Little Theatre, the Gate Theatre, the Apollo Theatre, and the Q Theatre. Other locations at which Banbury directed plays include the Cambridge Theatre in 1971, (Captain Brassbound's Conversion), Old Vic theatre, the Edinburgh Festival, the Chichester Festival Theatre, Paris, Dublin, South Africa, Kenya, and Australia. The Ransom Center also holds a collection of material relating to the 1952 American production of Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, which was directed by Banbury.

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 1938 Goodness, How Sad Peter Thropp TV film 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp Baby-Face Fitzroy 1948 Bond Street Dress Designer Uncredited1949 The History of Mr. Polly Gold-Spectacled Young Man Uncredited The Huggetts Abroad French Doctor