The Theatre
Having fallen in love with actress Jane Holland, McKern moved to England to be with her and they married in 1946. He soon became a regular performer at London's Old Vic theatre and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now called the Royal Shakespeare Theatre) in Stratford-upon-Avon, despite the difficulties posed by his glass eye and Australian accent.
In 1949, he played Forester in Love's Labour's Lost at the Old Vic. His most notable Shakespearean role was as Iago to Anthony Quayle's Othello in 1952. On the West End in London, McKern originated the role of the Common Man for Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons in 1960, but for the show's Broadway production, he was shifted to the role of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, the prosecutor of Sir Thomas More, which he would reprise in the film version. In 1965 he played the epynonymous villain in Bolt's The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew. He also memorably played Subtle in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist in 1962.
Read more about this topic: Leo McKern
Famous quotes containing the word theatre:
“... in the happy laughter of a theatre audience one can get the most immediate and numerically impressive guarantee that there is nothing in one’s mind which is not familiar to the mass of persons living at the time.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“As in a theatre the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious,
Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes
Did scowl on gentle Richard.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)