Basil Sydney
Acting • Born 1894-04-23 – Died 1968-01-10
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.
Filmography
49 credits
Went the Day Well?
Movie • 1942
Major Hammond / Kommandant Orlter
Treasure Island
Movie • 1950
Captain Smollett
Caesar and Cleopatra
Movie • 1945
Rufio
Ivanhoe
Movie • 1952
Waldemar Fitzurse
Salome
Movie • 1953
Pontius Pilate
Meet Me at Dawn
Movie • 1947
Georges Vermorel
Red Hot Romance
Movie • 1922
Rowland Stone
The Hands of Orlac
Movie • 1960
Maurice Seidelman
Simba
Movie • 1955
Mr Crawford
Bits of Our Aircraft are Missing
Movie • 1940
(uncredited)
Sea Wife
Movie • 1957
Bulldog
Hell Below Zero
Movie • 1954
Bland
Accused
Movie • 1936
Eugene Roget
The Black Sheep of Whitehall
Movie • 1942
Costello
A Story of David
Movie • 1960
King Saul
Mayerling
Movie • 1957
The Emperor Franz Joseph
The Riverside Murder
Movie • 1935
Inspector Philip Winton
Jassy
Movie • 1947
Nick Helmar
The Angel with the Trumpet
Movie • 1950
Francis Alt
Dirty Work
Movie • 1934
Hugh Stafford
The Dam Busters
Movie • 1955
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C.
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
Movie • 1960
Emperor of Lilliput
The Amateur Gentleman
Movie • 1936
Louis Chichester
Blind Man's Bluff
Movie • 1936
Dr. Peter Fairfax
The Midshipmaid
Movie • 1932
Cmdr. Fosberry
The Four Just Men
Movie • 1939
Frank Snell
The Tunnel
Movie • 1935
Mostyn
Hamlet
Movie • 1948
Claudius - The King
Three's Company
Movie • 1953
Dr. Graham
The Third Clue
Movie • 1934
Reinhardt Conway
Rhodes of Africa
Movie • 1936
Dr. Jim Jameson
Spring Meeting
Movie • 1941
James
Ships with Wings
Movie • 1941
Capt. Fairfax
The Next of Kin
Movie • 1942
Naval captain
The Farmer's Wife
Movie • 1941
Samuel Sweetland
Around the World in 80 Days
Movie • 1956
Reform Club Member
Star of India
Movie • 1954
King Louis XIV
The Magic Box
Movie • 1952
William Fox-Talbot
Crime Over London
Movie • 1936
'Joker' Finnigan
The Devil's Disciple
Movie • 1959
Lawyer Hawkins
Talk of the Devil
Movie • 1936
John Paul Jones
Movie • 1959
Sir William Young
Romance
Movie • 1920
Island in the Sun
Movie • 1957
Julian Fleury
The Man Within
Movie • 1947
Sir Henry Merriman
A Question of Adultery
Movie • 1958
Sir John Loring
No Hiding Place
TV • 1959
Silent Evidence
TV • 1962
Drama 61-67
TV • 1961
Mourtzinos