A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER...actor SIR GODFREY SEYMOUR TEARLE

By Richard Tearle

Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential British gentleman on stage and in both British and US films... 

Godfrey Tearle as MacBeth
with Diana Wynyard.

Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission 

of the Royal Shakespeare Company

The 'spiritual home' of the entire Tearle family lies in a little village in Bedfordshire called Stanbridge.  Anyone bearing that name even today has roots there and so we are all related in one way or another. So Godfrey Tearle was my relative though I cannot determine exactly how distant a relationship it would be.

No grand titles or  high born family connections for we Tearles: Agricultural Labourers for the most part, right up to the 20^th Century. Some of them helped build the London and North Western Railway from Leighton Buzzard to London.

Some were soldiers, like Godfrey Tearle's grandfather, George, who served in the Crimea War. He was a Stanbridge man. His son, also George, was born in Plymouth, however, and was immediately taken by a life on the stage. He changed his name to Osmond Tearle, found success in America as well as the UK and was famous enough to turn down acting with Beerbohm Tree – the finest of his generation. That would have repercussions later, but is another story.

Osmond married Marianne Conway, herself from an acting family and it was a second marriage for both of them. Marianne already had a young son from her first marriage to jazz player Jules Levy. When their first son, Godfrey, was born in 1884, Frederick Levy was his half-brother. Frederick would later change his name to Conway Tearle and was a suave silent movie matinee idol.

The family returned to England, settling in Penrith, near Carlisle  where the boys went to school. Godfrey got a call to stand in for a sick child playing Prince Richard (the one murdered in the Tower) in the Shakespeare play, Richard III. He was nine years old. Osmond was what was known as an actor-manager, in that he not only performed but had his own company, travelling around and putting on plays. Godfrey joined his father's company and took over when Osmond died in 1901. In 1908, Godfrey co-starred with his then wife, Mary Malone, in Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum Theatre in London. The performance was filmed, the first such example in England.

“Like this?”

Godfrey, having given up the company, worked with Beerbohm Tree but the latter made life uncomfortable and it was not a happy experience for him.

Postcard of The Garden of Allah – with camels!

In 1915, Godfrey joined up with the Royal Horse Artillery, seeing action at Paschendeale and may have been wounded. But he came out of the war and resumed his acting career, triumphing in The Garden of Allah on stage playing the tortured priest who has to choose between God and the woman he loves. The play was a huge success despite the fact that on the opening night, the audience were showered with pease which were being used to simulate a sandstorm. Unfortunately, someone forgot to lower the specially constructed mesh curtain – the audience took it in good part, however. The play also featured live camels on stage.

As Othello

Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission 

of the Royal Shakespeare Company

Godfrey's forte was Shakespeare and he took the lead on three occasions at Stratford, starring in MacBeth, Othello and Anthony and Cleopatra. This latter he took on tour to America but without his Stratford leading lady, [Dame] Edith Evans. Katherine Cornell took that part in the states and one young actor in the cast would find fame as Charlton Heston. So impressed was Godfrey that he wanted to bring Heston to Stratford but Equity vetoed it. Godfrey confided that “Cleopatra has to be a bit of a slut and whatever you say about Edith, a slut she is not...”

As Anthony with (Dame) Edith Evans as Cleopatra

Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission 

of the Royal Shakespeare Company

Godfrey also made many films, though sadly, he is rather overlooked in this too. He was cast  as the evil Professor Jordan in Hitchcock's original classic, The 39 Steps. He played the rear gunner in the cult film One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing and was cast as President Roosevelt in The Beginning of the End, a film about the creation of the atom bomb used on Hiroshima. He also made a cameo appearance as the steam loving Bishop Ollie in the wonderful Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt. This was his last film as he passed away following a long illness in 1952.

Movie poster  and...

... The Titfield Thunderbolt

He was married three times – to actresses Mary Malone and Stella Freeman and, following Stella's early death, to Huntley and Palmer's heiress, Barbara Palmer. That marriage, as with Mary, ended in divorce and he spent his final years in the company of the young actress Jill Bennett, whom he met when she was cast in his production of MacBeth at Stratford. He had no children and confided to Jill that he did not wish any children of his to suffer the same life as he had led, continuously uprooting their lives to travel around the country or even further afield. It was another relative of mine who contacted Jill Bennett and persuaded her to write the book 'Godfrey: A Special Time Remembered' which, although inaccurate in some areas, is a wonderful tribute to the man.

Cover of Jill Bennett's book
of memories of Godfrey

All in all, he was a wonderful actor, the possessor of a rich, mellifluous voice and highly respected by his contemporaries – he was actually nicknamed 'God' by his Stratford colleagues – and he was universally approved to become the first president of the then newly formed actor's union, Equity, though he said that he would stand down once they were admitted to the Trade Union's Council. A man of his word, this he did. It was for this service that he received his knighthood.

Many years ago I had the honour and pleasure to speak on the telephone to Sir Donald Sinden, well known for his stories involving actors, and he told me this lovely tale:

Godfrey and some of his friends were in their club and one of them was so drunk that he could not possibly be trusted to find his way home. Godfrey, being sober, offered to drive the chap home, but Godfrey could not make out what the man was saying when he asked him his address.  Finally he thought he had it and drove to a place in south London but could not find the road. “Lords” declared his friend, “I can get home from Lords!” So Godfrey turned the car around and drove all the way back and then on to Lords Cricket ground (in north London). Once there he turned to his friend and asked, “How do you get to your home from Lords?”

Came the reply: “By Tube ….”

Godfrey Seymour Tearle : 12 October 1884 - 9 June 1953 (aged 68)

© Richard Tearle

Richard is a Discovering Diamonds reviewer (and my good friend) 

Partial filmography

The Fool (1913) - Sterndale

The March Hare (1919) - Guy

A Sinless Sinner (1919) - Tom Harvey

Fancy Dress (1919) - Tony Broke

Nobody's Child (1919) - Ernest d'Alvard

Queen's Evidence (1919) - Adam Pascal

Salome of the Tenements (1925) - John Manning

Guy of Warwick (1926, Short) - Guy of Warwick

If Youth But Knew (1926) - Dr. Martin Summer

One Colombo Night (1926) - Jim Farnell

These Charming People (1931) - James Berridge

The Shadow Between (1931) - Paul Haddon

Puppets of Fate (1933) - Richard Sabine

Jade (1934, Short) - The Man

The 39 Steps (1935) - Professor Jordan

The Last Journey (1936) - Sir Wilfred Rhodes

East Meets West (1936) - Sir Henry Mallory

Tomorrow We Live (1936) - Sir Charles Hendra

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) - Sir George Corbett - Rear Gunner in B for Bertie

Tomorrow We Live (1943) - Mayor Pierre Duchesne

Undercover (1943) - Gen. Von Staengel (Military Governor)

The Lamp Still Burns (1943) - Sir Marshall Freyne

Medal for the General (1944) - General Church

The Rake's Progress (1945) - Colonel Robert Kenway

The Beginning or the End (1947) - President Roosevelt

Private Angelo (1949) - Count Piccologrando

White Corridors (1951) - Mr. Groom Sr.

I Believe in You (1952) - Mr. Pyke

Mandy (1952) - Mr. Garland

Decameron Nights (1953) - Ricciardo / Bernabo

The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) - The Bishop (final film role)