Murray Melvin

Murray Melvin (10 August 1932 – 14 April 2023) was an English actor. A member of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company, he originated the part of Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's play A Taste of Honey, reprising the role in Tony Richardson's 1961 film version. He appeared in several Ken Russell film and television productions including The Devils and played Reverend Samuel Runt in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975). Melvin's other notable screen roles include parts in Alfie (1966) and Torchwood (2007). He also worked as a theatre director and authored two books on the theatre.

Early life Melvin was born on 10 August 1932, in St. Pancras, London, the son of Hugh Victor Melvin and Maisie Winifred, née Driscoll. His father was an electrician in the Ministry of Public Building and Works until his retirement in 1967, when he was awarded the Imperial Service Medal. Melvin left his north London secondary school at the age of fourteen unable to master fractions but as head prefect, a qualification he said he gained by always having clean fingernails and well-combed hair. He started work as an office boy for a firm of travel agents off Oxford Street.

To help channel the energies of the young after the disturbing times of the war, his parents had helped to found a youth club in Hampstead, financed by the Co-operative Society of which they were longstanding members. A drama section formed with Melvin its most enthusiastic participant.

A short-lived job followed as an import and export clerk in a shipping office, during which he inadvertently exported quantities of goods to destinations that had not ordered them. This was followed by two unhappy years of National Service in the Royal Air Force (his father had served in the RAF during the Second World War).

Melvin was employed as clerk and secretary to the director of the Royal Air Force sports board at the Air Ministry, then based at Adastral House in Kingsway. Melvin reprised the role of Geoffrey in the 1961 film version directed by Tony Richardson (1961). He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor in 1962 and was also nominated for the BAFTA "Most Promising Newcomer" award.

In April 1960, William Saroyan, on a world tour, stopped off in London where he wrote and directed a play for Theatre Workshop in which he cast Melvin as the leading character called Sam, the Highest Jumper of Them All. Then the troupe paid their annual visit to the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre for the Paris World Theatre Season with Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour in which he played Brainworm. Rehearsals then started for Stephen Lewis's Sparrows Can't Sing in which Melvin played the role of Knocker Jugg. The following year he transferred to the role Georgie Brimsdown for the film adaptation of the play. The film was directed by Littlewood.

After a break of nearly two years, the company came together to create the musical, Oh, What a Lovely War! After its initial run at Stratford it went to the Paris Festival and won it. The company returned to the Wyndham's Theatre where the play won the Best Musical category in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Between the end of its London run and the opening at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York, the company visited the Edinburgh Festival with Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, in which Melvin metamorphosed as Gadshill, Shallow, Vernon and the Earl of March. The production of Oh, What a Lovely War! in New York in 1964 was his last for Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop Company.

Other film performances Melvin had an important role as Reverend Samuel Runt in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975). In the video project "Stanley and Us", he talks about Kubrick's "57 takes (plus 20)".

Melvin was reunited with his co-stars from the film version of A Taste of Honey, Rita Tushingham and Paul Danquah, in the Swinging Sixties comedy Smashing Time (1967), in which he and Danquah had cameo roles.

Melvin co-starred with Russell-regular Oliver Reed in Richard Fleischer's film of The Prince and the Pauper, Crossed Swords (1977), and in Alberto Lattuada's four part television film Christopher Columbus (1985).

Peter Medak cast Melvin in five films: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972), starring Alan Bates, Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973, starring Peter Sellers), The Krays (1990), Let Him Have It (1991), and as Dr. Chilip in David Copperfield (2000).

Melvin featured in two films by Christine Edzard, Little Dorrit (1988), and As You Like It (1992). As Monsieur Reyer, the musical director and conductor of the Opera Populaire, he was cast in Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of the musical The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

In 1991, 34 years after becoming assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, he joined the theatre's board, a position he held until 2011. During this period, he also became recognised for his work as a theatre and film historian. For example, he appears as a contributor on the BFI DVD release of the Bill Douglas Trilogy, where he provides historical commentary.

In 1992, he became the Theatre Royal's voluntary archivist and in 2009 he was appointed a member of the Theatre Workshop Trust. He led the successful campaign to erect a statue of Joan Littlewood in Theatre Square at Stratford.

On 18 July 2013, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts by De Montfort University and in July 2015 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Essex. In September 2016 he received an Honorary Fellowship from the Rose Bruford College.

Several commercial available audio recordings have been made featuring Murray Melvin. These include four plays on LPs produced by Caedmon Records (Two Gentlemen of Verona (1965); A Midsummer Night's Dream; George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1966); and The Poetry of Kipling). His performance in Oh, What a Lovely War is available on Decca Records (1969).

In 2007, he narrated Tales of the Supernatural Volume 3 by M. R. James for Fantom Films. This was followed in 2009 by M.R. James - A Ghost Story for Christmas, and in 2011 and 2012 by two recordings of Wilkie Collins: Supernatural Stories, Volumes 2 & 3 and The Dark Shadows Legend: The Happier Dead.

Personal life and death In December 2022, Melvin suffered a fall from which he never fully recovered. He died at St Thomas' Hospital in London on 14 April 2023, at the age of 90. Without any living close relatives at the time of his death, he had former Stratford East director Kerry Kyriacos Michael appointed as his next of kin.