Jack Gwillim

Jack William Frederick Gwillim (15 December 1909 – 2 July 2001) was an English character actor. Career Born in Canterbury, Kent, England, he joined the Royal Navy at 17 and served for over twenty years. During his time in the Navy, he became a champion boxer and rugby player, and was invalided out in 1946. After training at Central School of Speech and Drama, Gwillim began his acting career in earnest in the 1950s, working on both stage and screen. On stage, he appeared both at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford and at the Old Vic. He performed in an extensive amount of theatre, both classics and modern plays, in the West End of London and on Broadway. Some of his most notable roles include: playing in Ralph Richardson's production of The Merchant of Venice; The Right Honourable Gentleman with lifelong friend Anthony Quayle; a revival of My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison, playing Colonel Pickering; John Gielgud's The Constant Wife, with Ingrid Bergman; and The Iceman Cometh, with James Earl Jones. Gwillim also featured in over fifty films and television series, usually war films or historical epics. His military background, commanding presence and deep, booming voice typecast him as soldiers and authority figures. Some of his most notable roles include playing a warship captain in Sink the Bismarck! (1960), the archbishop Hubert Walter in Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), the obnoxious club secretary in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), King Aeëtes in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), an RAF officer in the James Bond film Thunderball (1965), the Lord Chief Justice in A Man for All Seasons (1966), General Harold Alexander in Patton (1970), Poseidon in Clash of the Titans (1981), and Van Helsing in The Monster Squad (1987). He also had a recurring role on the TV series Danger Man, The Saint, and The Troubleshooters.