Lionel Jeffries

Biography

Lionel Charles Jeffries (born June 10, 1926 in Forest Hill, London, England) is a British actor, screenwriter and film director. Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. After his World War II service, for which he was awarded the Burma Star, he trained at RADA. He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield, Staffordshire for two years and appeared in early British television plays. He built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself. For example, he played the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries is actually 6 months younger than Van Dyke. His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s in leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967). Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films, including a well regarded version of The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972). He was a member of the British Catholic Stage Guild. Jeffries had a dislike of television and its production values and shunned the medium for many years.[citation needed] He reluctantly appeared on television in an acting role in the 1980 London Weekend Television Dennis Potter drama Cream in My Coffee and realised that television production values had little differences from those in the film industry; as a result he launched a belated career in television. He appeared in an episode of the Thames Television/ITV comedy-drama Minder in 1983, played a leading role in the situation comedy Roll Over Beethoven (Central Television/ITV) and appeared in an episode of Inspector Morse in 1990 (Central Television/Zenith/ITV). During location filming for an episode of the 1983 Thames/ITV situation comedy Tom, Dick and Harriet, Jeffries and his co-stars Ian Ogilvy and Bridget Forsyth had to be rescued when a stunt involving a car went wrong. Jeffries retired from acting in 2001 and his health declined in the following years. He died on 19 February 2010 in a nursing home in Poole, Dorset. He had been married to Eileen Mary Walsh from 1951 until his death. Their son and two daughters also survived him. Selected filmography As actor: Stage Fright (1950) Will Any Gentleman...? (1953) The Black Rider (1954) Windfall (1955) The Colditz Story (1955) The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) No Smoking (1955) All for Mary (1955) Bhowani Junction (1956) Jumping for Joy (1956) Up in the World (1956) The Baby and the Battleship (1956) Eyewitness (1956) Lust for Life (1957) High Terrace (1956) Hour of Decision (1957) Doctor at Large (1957) The Vicious Circle (1957) Man in the Sky (1957) Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) Barnacle Bill (1957) Dunkirk (1958) Up the Creek (1958) The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) Law and Disorder (1958) Orders to Kill (1958) Behind the Mask (1958) Further up the Creek (1958) Girls at Sea (1958) Nowhere to Go (1958) The Nun's Story (1959) Please Turn Over (1959) Bobbikins (1959) Idle on Parade (1959) Jazz Boat (1960) Life is a Circus (1960) Let's Get Married (1960) Two-Way Stretch (1960) Tarzan the Magnificent (1960) The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) The Hellions (1961) Fanny (1961) Mrs. Gibbon's Boys (1962) Operation Snatch (1962) The Notorious Landlady (1962) Kill or Cure (1962) The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) The Scarlet Blade (1963) Call me Bwana (1963) Murder Ahoy! (1964) The Long Ships (1964) The Truth About Spring (1964) First Men in the Moon (1964) You Must Be Joking! (1965) The Secret of My Success (1965) The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966) Drop Dead Darling (1966) Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) Camelot (1967) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) 12 + 1 (1969) Twinky (1969) Eyewitness (1970) Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) What Changed Charley Farthing? (1974) Royal Flash (1975) The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) Cream in My Coffee television drama (1980) Better Late Than Never (1982) Tom, Dick and Harriet (TV series) (1982–83) A Chorus of Disapproval (1988) Abel's Island (1988) Danny, the Champion of the World (1989) As writer-director: The Railway Children (1970) Baxter! (1972) The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972) Wombling Free (1977) The Water Babies (1978)