Jonathan Cecil | |
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| Born | Jonathan Hugh Gascoyne-Cecil (1939-02-22)22 February 1939 Westminster,County of London, England |
| Died | 22 September 2011(2011-09-22) (aged 72) Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, England |
| Alma mater | London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1963–2011 |
| Spouse(s) | Vivien Heilbron (m. 1963;div. 1975) |
| Father | Lord David Cecil |
Jonathan Hugh Gascoyne-Cecil (22 February 1939 – 22 September 2011), known asJonathan Cecil, was an English actor.
Cecil was born on 22 February 1939,[1] inWestminster,[2] the son ofLord David Cecil and the grandson ofthe 4th Marquess of Salisbury.[1] His other grandfather was the literary criticSir Desmond MacCarthy. He was the great-grandson of the ConservativePrime Minister, theMarquess of Salisbury.[3]
Brought up inOxford, where his father was Goldsmith Professor of English, Cecil was educated atEton, where he played small parts in school plays, and atNew College, Oxford, where he readmodern languages, specialising inFrench, and continued with amateur acting[4][5] in theOxford University Dramatic Society.[3]
At Oxford, his friends includedDudley Moore andAlan Bennett.[6] In a production ofBen Jonson'sBartholomew Fair, he played alunatic called Troubadour and a woman who sells pigs.[5] Of his early acting at Oxford, Cecil said
I was still stiff and awkward, but this was rather effective forcomedy parts, playing sort of comic servants in plays, and in thecabaret nights we had.[5]
After Oxford, he spent two years training for an acting career at theLondon Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he was taught (amongst others) by Michael MacOwan andVivian Matalon and where his contemporaries includedIan McKellen andDerek Jacobi.[5]
Cecil's first television appearance was in playing a leading role oppositeVanessa Redgrave in "Maggie", an episode of theBBC television seriesFirst Night transmitted in February 1964, which he later called "a baptism by fire because I was being seen by half the nation". After that he spent eighteen months inrepertory atSalisbury, of which he later commented, "You learnt how to make an entrance and make an exit." His parts at Salisbury included theDauphin inSaint Joan,Disraeli inPortrait of a Queen,Trinculo inThe Tempest, and "all theShakespeare".[5]
His firstWest End part came in May 1965 inJulian Mitchell's dramatisation ofA Heritage and Its History at thePhoenix, in which he got good notices, and his next was in aBeaumont production ofPeter Ustinov'sHalf-Way up the Tree, directed bySir John Gielgud.[5]
In film and television, Cecil almost always playedupper class characters. His work included the role of Cummings inThe Diary of a Nobody (1964), and in the series of adaptations from P. G. Wodehouse,What Ho! Jeeves (1973–1981) he played the recurring characterBingo Little.[7] He was Captain Cadbury in theDad's Army episode "Things That Go Bump in the Night" (1973) and Mr Herbert in all six episodes ofOh Happy Band! (1980), both produced byDavid Croft,Bertie Wooster inThank You, P. G. Wodehouse (1981), Ricotin inFederico Fellini'sAnd the Ship Sails On (1983), andCaptain Hastings (to Peter Ustinov'sHercule Poirot) inThirteen at Dinner (1985),Dead Man's Folly andMurder in Three Acts (both 1986). In 2009 he appeared in an episode ofMidsomer Murders. He has been called "one of the finest upper-class-twits of his era".[4]
He also worked inradio, where his credits includedThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[8] andThe Brightonomicon. He also appeared inThe Next Programme Follows Almost Immediately, playing characters with foreign accents. Additionally, he stood in forDerek Nimmo in the role of the Bishop's Chaplain, the Reverend Mervyn Noote, in the second series of the radio episodes of the ecclesiastical sitcomAll Gas and Gaiters, which ran for twenty episodes.
He narrated audio books of many ofP. G. Wodehouse's books, performing voice characterisations for each character, and becoming possibly the most known narrator to ever perform the series.
Cecil wrote occasionally forThe Spectator andThe Times Literary Supplement. In one piece he noted
Handsome young male actors of the older school have tended, in my experience, to be somewhat vapid and vain. I write this in no spirit of envy — comic andcharacter actors, like proverbial blondes, usually have more fun.[9]
He also admitted that "most of my experience has been in comedy, that’s the way life has taken me ... if I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t do parts with more depth".[5]
Cecil was married twice. He met the actressVivien Heilbron when both were studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and they were married in 1963. They later divorced.[10] In 1976, Cecil married secondly the actress Anna Sharkey, whom he had met while appearing at theMermaid Theatre in 1972.[10]
Cecil died frompneumonia on 22 September 2011 atCharing Cross Hospital,Hammersmith, aged 72. He had suffered fromemphysema.[10][11]
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