Career
Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness (1948). After this ABPC offered him a two year contract and he appeared in several of their lower budget films such as Cairo Road (1950). His career got a boost when he appeared in Women of Twilight (1952); this was made by Romulus Films who signed Harvey to a long-term contract. He secured a supporting role in a Hollywood film, Knights of the Round Table (1953), which led to being cast with Rex Harrison and George Sanders in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954). That year he also played Romeo in Renato Castellani's adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, narrated by John Gielgud. He was now established as an emerging British star. He says he turned down an offer to appear in Helen of Troy (1955) to act at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Harvey was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in I Am A Camera (1955), with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles (Cabaret is a musical from the same source texts). He also appeared on American TV and on Broadway, making his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Island of Goats, a flop which closed after one week, though his performance won him a 1956 Theatre World Award.
Harvey appeared twice more on Broadway, in 1957 with Julie Harris, Pamela Brown and Colleen Dewhurst in William Wycherley's The Country Wife, and as Shakespeare's Henry V in 1959, as part of the Old Vic company, which featured a young Judi Dench as Katherine, the Daughter of the King of France. In John Miller's biography of Dame Judi, With A Crack In Her Voice, she talked of being bewildered at how Harvey never actually looked at her during his speeches, and the book also quotes Joss Ackland as saying that Americans seemed to think Harvey was some sort of great actor, which his colleagues certainly did not. Harvey was regularly dismissed by critics. In his posthumously published autobiography Knight Errant, actor Robert Stephens described him as "an appalling man and, even more unforgivably, an appalling actor".
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