Name
Basil Sydney
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1894-04-23
Deathday
1968-01-10 (74 years old)
Place of Birth
Essex, England, UK
Biography
Basil Sydney (23 April 1894 – 10 January 1968) was an English stage and screen actor. Sydney made his name in 1915 in the London stage hit Romance by Edward Sheldon, with Broadway star Doris Keane, and he costarred with Keane in the 1920 silent film of the play. The couple married in 1918, and when Keane revived Romance in New York City in 1921, Sydney made his Broadway debut in the parts. He stayed in New York for over a decade playing classical roles such as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (1922), Richard Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple (1923), the title role in Hamlet (1923), Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I (1926), and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew (1927).[citation needed] In 1937 he starred in the murder mystery Blondie White in the West End.
He made over 50 screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island (1950), Ivanhoe (1952), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), but the focus of his career was the stage on both sides of the Atlantic.
Known For
6.545
Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. ...
6.2
At the height of the Roman Civil War, an aging Julius Caesar finds himself intrigued by th...
6.922
The story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ru...
6.5
A scandalous tale of politics, social inequality, interracial romance, and murder set on a...
6.636
In a small New England town during the American War of Independence, Dick Dudgeon, a revol...
- 1942 Went the Day Well? as Major Hammond / Kommandant Orlter
- 1950 Treasure Island as Captain Smollett
- 1945 Caesar and Cleopatra as Rufio
- 1952 Ivanhoe as Waldemar Fitzurse
- 1953 Salome as Pontius Pilate
- 1947 Meet Me at Dawn as Georges Vermorel
- 1922 Red Hot Romance as Rowland Stone
- 1960 The Hands of Orlac as Maurice Seidelman
- 1955 Simba as Mr Crawford
- 1940 Bits of Our Aircraft Are Missing as (uncredited)
- 1957 Sea Wife as Bulldog
- 1954 Hell Below Zero as Bland
- 1936 Accused as Eugene Roget
- 1942 The Black Sheep of Whitehall as Costello
- 1960 A Story of David as King Saul
- 1957 Mayerling as The Emperor Franz Joseph
- 1935 The Riverside Murder as Inspector Philip Winton
- 1947 Jassy as Nick Helmar
- 1950 The Angel with the Trumpet as Francis Alt
- 1934 Dirty Work as Hugh Stafford
- 1955 The Dam Busters as Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C.
- 1960 The 3 Worlds of Gulliver as Emperor of Lilliput
- 1936 The Amateur Gentleman as Louis Chichester
- 1936 Blind Man's Bluff as Dr. Peter Fairfax
- 1932 The Midshipmaid as Cmdr. Fosberry
- 1939 The Four Just Men as Frank Snell
- 1935 The Tunnel as Mostyn
- 1948 Hamlet as Claudius - The King
- 1953 Three's Company as Dr. Graham
- 1934 The Third Clue as Reinhardt Conway
- 1936 Rhodes of Africa as Dr. Jim Jameson
- 1941 Spring Meeting as James
- 1941 Ships with Wings as Capt. Fairfax
- 1942 The Next of Kin as Naval captain
- 1941 The Farmer's Wife as Samuel Sweetland
- 1956 Around the World in 80 Days as Reform Club Member
- 1954 Star of India as King Louis XIV
- 1952 The Magic Box as William Fox-Talbot
- 1936 Crime Over London as 'Joker' Finnigan
- 1959 The Devil's Disciple as Lawyer Hawkins
- 1936 Talk of the Devil
- 1959 John Paul Jones as Sir William Young
- 1920 Romance
- 1957 Island in the Sun as Julian Fleury
- 1947 The Man Within as Sir Henry Merriman
- 1958 A Question of Adultery as Sir John Loring
- 1959 No Hiding Place ( 1 episode )
- 1962 Silent Evidence ( 6 episodes ) as Dr. Martin Westlake
- 1961 Drama 61-67 ( 1 episode ) as Mourtzinos
- 1956 Armchair Theatre ( 1 episode ) as Pastor Manders
- 1964 Thursday Theatre ( 1 episode ) as Sir Norman Tullis
