Jack Shepherd (actor)

Infobox actor


imagesize =
name = Jack Shepherd
birthdate = birthdate and age|1940|10|29|df=y
birthplace = Leeds, Yorkshire
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = actor

Jack Shepherd (born 29 October, 1940) is an English actor, playwright, theatre director, saxophone player and jazz pianist, who made his film debut in 1969 with "All Neat in Black Stockings" and "The Virgin Soldiers". He is perhaps best known for his television roles, most notably the title role in detective drama "Wycliffe". His daughter Catherine Shepherd is also an actor.

Biography

Early life

Shepherd attended Roundhay School, Leeds and then studied fine art at Kings College, Newcastle, gaining a BA before going on to study acting at the Central School and then as a student founder of the Drama Centre London.

Career

He worked at the Royal Court Theatre from 1965 to 1969, making his first appearance on the London stage as an Officer of Dragoons in "Sergeant Musgrave's Dance". In July 1967 he played Arnold Middleton in David Storey's "The Restoration of Arnold Middleton", which transferred to the Criterion Theatre, a performance for which he received the "Plays and Players" London Critics' Award as most promising actor of the year.

During the 1970s, he appeared in many television dramas, including an occasional appearance in the series "Budgie". Shepherd took the title role in Trevor Griffiths' Thames TV series "Bill Brand" (1976) as a radical Labour MP. In the same year he also played a television director struggling to keep patient on a doomed location shoot in "Ready When You Are, Mr McGill", both performances gaining 1976 RTS Awards. He appeared as Renfield in "Count Dracula" (1977), with Louis Jourdan in the title role.

Shepherd also spent the decade running a drama studio in Kentish Town, north London with fellow actor Richard Wilson, and during that time became interested in playwriting. He devised several plays for the theatre including "The Sleep of Reason", "Real Time", "Clapperclaw" and "Half Moon".

In 1972 he was a co-founder member, with Sir Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, of the democratically run Actors' Company, playing Vasques in "'Tis Pity She's a Whore", Inspector of Police in "Ruling the Roost" (Edinburgh Festival and tour) and Okano in "The Three Arrows" at the Arts, Cambridge in October 1972. In December 1972 he played Ben in "Let's Murder Vivaldi" at The King's Head Theatre, and in January 1973 took the title role in "Dracula" at the Bush Theatre, also collaborating in the writing.

From 1977 to 1985 he was a member of Bill Bryden's Cottesloe Theatre Company at the National Theatre, playing Teach in "American Buffalo", Judas in "The Passion", Boamer in "Lark Rise", Thomas Clarkeson in "The World Turned Upside Down", Smitty in "The Long Voyage Home", The Correspondent in "Dispatches" and Hickey in "The Iceman Cometh". Shepherd was the first actor to take the stage role of Richard Roma in "Glengarry Glen Ross" at the Cottesloe in 1983, for which he received a Society of West End Theatre award (later known as the Laurence Olivier Awards) as Actor of the Year in a New Play

His first written work for the stage was "In Lambeth", an imaginary conversation about revolution between the poet and artist William Blake, his wife Catherine and Thomas Paine, author of "The Rights of Man". He first directed it at the Partisan Theatre in July 1989 before its transfer to the Donmar Warehouse, winning the 1989 "Time Out" Awards for Best Directing and Best Writing. Shepherd's work in television increased during the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in his acclaimed role as the eponymous Detective Superintendent "Charles Wycliffe" in the HTV television series Wycliffe from 1993 to 1996. As a theatre director he has staged several productions at the Shakespeare's Globe, including his lively 'Prologue Production' of The Two Gentlemen of Verona starring Mark Rylance as Proteus, which opened the Globe to the theatregoing public in August 1996, a year before the formal opening Gala. In 1998 at the Globe he played a sad Antonio in Richard Olivier's production of "The Merchant of Venice".

Shepherd's epic drama about the Chartist movement, "Holding Fire!" was commissioned by the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre as part of its Renaissance and Revolution season, and was first staged there by Mark Rosenblatt in August, 2007. [ [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article2215467.ece Holding Fire! - Times Online ] ]

Plays

Plays include:
*"The Incredible Journey of Sir Francis Younghusband" (Royal Court Upstairs)
*"The Sleep of Reason" (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) 1973
*"Clapperclaw" (BBC Two) 1981
*"Real Time" (directed and devised with the Joint Stock company) 1982
*"Revelations" (Bridge Lane, London) 1983
*"In Lambeth" (Partisan Theatre and Donmar Warehouse) 1989
*"Comic Cuts" (Derby Playhouse, Salisbury Theatre and Lyric Studio, Hammersmith) 1995
*"Chasing the Moment" (BAC1 London) 1995, (revived Arcola, Dalston) 2007
*"Half Moon" (Southwark Playhouse) 1998
*"Through a Cloud" (Birmingham Rep and Drum, Plymouth) 2004), revived Arcola) 2005
*"Man Falling Down: A Mask Play" (devised and co-written with Oliver Cotton, Shakespeare’s Globe) 2005
*"Holding Fire!" (Shakespeare’s Globe) 2007

Filmography

*"All Neat In Black Stockings" (1969)
*"The Virgin Soldiers" (1969)
*"The Bed Sitting Room" (1969)
*"Ready When You Are Mr MacGill" (TV) (1976)
*"Count Dracula" (TV) (1977)
*"The Big Man" (1990)
*"Twenty-One" (1991)
*"The Object of Beauty" (1991)
*"Blue Ice" (1992)
*"Wycliffe" (TV) (1993)
*"No Escape" (1994)
*"Over Here" (TV) (1994)
*"The Scarlet Tunic" (1998)
*"Wonderland" (1999)
*"Charlotte Gray" (2001)
*"The Martins" (2001)
*"Boudica" (2003)
*"A Cock and Bull Story" (Tristram Shandy) (2005)
*"Lipstick" (2005)
*"The Golden Compass" (2007)
*"God on Trial" (TV) (2008)

Further reading

*"" by Keith Dewhurst and Jack Shepherd, Methuen Drama (2006) ISBN 0413775852

References

*"Who's Who in the Theatre". 17th edition, Gale Publishing (1981) ISBN 0810302357
*Halliwell's Film Guide
*Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies
*Theatre Record indexes

External links

*imdb name|name=Jack Shepherd|id=0791790
* [http://www.markhamfroggatt.com/public/controller.php?aktion=actor&id=132&gen=t&work=Voiceover&alpha=R&omega=V&start=0 His theatrical agent's Jack Shepherd page]