- Rodney Ackland
Rodney Ackland (
May 18 1908 -December 6 1991 ), born inWestcliff-on-Sea , Essex, died inRichmond upon Thames , Surrey.Ackland was an English
playwright ,actor ,theatre director andscreenwriter , educated atBalham Grammar School in London. In his 16th year he made his first stage appearance at theGate Theatre Studio , playing Medvedieff in "The Lower Depths " and later studied acting at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art. He marriedMab Lonsdale , daughter of the playwrightFrederick Lonsdale , in 1952; she died in 1972.Theatre career
In 1929, after performing with various repertory companies, he toured as Young Woodley in the play of that name. At the
Gaiety Theatre in 1933 he played Paul in his own adaptation of "Ballerina", which also toured the following year, and at theCriterion in 1936 he played the role of Oliver Nashwick in his own original play "After October " which transferred there from theArts Theatre .In 1941 he co-wrote the screenplay for the film "
Temptation Harbour " starringRobert Newton andSimone Simon . Two musical collaborations came in 1942 with his version of "Blossom Time " starringRichard Tauber asFranz Schubert at the Lyric Theatre, and hisLondon Coliseum production of the musical play, "The Belle of New York ". He also wrote and directed "Dark River " at theWhitehall Theatre in 1943, starringPeggy Ashcroft . He joinedRobert Newton as co-authors of "Cupid and Mars" (1945), and "A Multitude of Sins" (1951)The first staging of his large-cast drama, "
The Pink Room " (or "The Escapists"), in Brighton and then at theLyric Hammersmith in London on 18th June, 1952, was largely financed byTerence Rattigan , who liked the play and believed it deserved a London production. But it received a severe critical panning and after that, apart from one further play and an adaptation, it led to a 40-year near-silence from the playwright. According to its director,Frith Banbury , "When the play failed, Terry never wanted to see Rodney again."However, following the abolition of the
Lord Chamberlain in 1968, there was a growing permissiveness in what could be presented on stage, and in the 1980s, while ailing with leukaemia, Rodney Ackland rewrote aspects of this play, re-titling it "Absolute Hell ". It was put on in its new form in 1988 to considerable success at theOrange Tree Theatre , Richmond-upon-Thames, directed bySam Walters andJohn Gardyne , and starringPolly Hemingway andDavid Rintoul .In 1991 it was adapted and directed for BBC Television by
Anthony Page , starring DameJudi Dench , and the play was revived by Page at theRoyal National Theatre in 1995, again with Dench in the leading role.See also
Nick Smurthwaite 's theatre profile of Ackland forThe Stage , "Revival of a Realist", 5 February, 2004 [http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/443/revival-of-a-realist]Film career
Rodney Ackland's first contact with
Alfred Hitchcock was as a supporting actor in the 1932 screen version ofJohn Galsworthy 's play "The Skin Game ". But a year later Hitchcock recognised his potential as a screenwriter, collaborating with him on the second film adaptation ofJ Jefferson Farjeon 's London fog-bound thriller "Number Seventeen " starringLeon M Lion . Ackland co-wrote the popular British film "Bank Holiday" (1938), contributed additional dialogue to "Young Man's Fancy" (1940), and made some uncredited contributions to 1941's "Dangerous Moonlight " and 1944's "Love Story".His screenplay for "Hatter's Castle" in 1941, from the novel by
A.J. Cronin , provided a rampant star role for Robert Newton as the megalomaniac Scottish hatter. In 1942 he shared withEmeric Pressburger an Academy Award nomination for thescreenplay of "Forty-Ninth Parallel ", starringRaymond Massey andEric Portman , (released in the United States as "The Invaders").Ackland is credited with discovering British-American actress
Sally Ann Howes , the child of neighbourBobby Howes , when he insisted that she audition for his 1943 film "Thursday's Child", which he both wrote and directed.He renewed his association with Pressburger in 1946 with a screenplay for the stagey, now forgotten thriller "
Wanted for Murder ", mainly as a film vehicle for the talents of Eric Portman playing a man obsessed by his father's role as the publc hangman. In the same year he made the first adaptation ofGeorges Simenon 's novel "Newhaven/Dieppe ", directed byLance Comfort , with another overwrought performance by Robert Newton, set against swirling studio fog.He twice collaborated with Rattigan as a movie scriptwriter: in 1942 for
Anthony Asquith 's "Uncensored ", starring Eric Portman; and again — but neither he nor Rattigan were credited — for the 1948 Associated British production of "Bond Street ", four stories in one, about a wedding trousseauHis final work for the cinema was a major screenplay credit for his 1948 film adaptation of
Alexander Pushkin 's "The Queen of Spades", disappointingly directed byThorold Dickinson for ABP, but with riveting central performances fromAnton Walbrook and DameEdith Evans With co-author
Elspeth Grant , Ackland wrote his memoirs, "The Celluloid Mistress , or The Custard Pie of Dr. Caligari", published by Alan Wingate in London in 1954.Plays
* "Improper People" (1929)
* "Marion Ella" and "Dance With No Music" (1930)
* "Strange Orchestra" (1931) [http://www.jghonline.co.uk/orangetree/whats_on_archive.asp?ID=93&ArchiveYear=2004]
* "Ballerina", adapted fromEleanor Smith 's novel (1933)
* "Birthday" (1934)
* "The Old Ladies", adapted fromHugh Walpole 's 1924 novel (1935)
* "After October" and "Plot Twenty-One" (1936)
* "Yes, My Darling Daughter", an English version of the American comedy byMark Reed (1937)
* "The White Guard ", adapted from the Russian ofMikhail Bulgakov (1938)
* "Remembrance of Things Past" (1938)
* "Sixth Floor", an English version of the play byAlfred Gehri (1939)
* "Blossom Time", with music by Franz Schubert (1942)
* "The Dark River" (1943)
* "Crime and Punishment", adapted fromDostoevsky , (1945)
* "Before the Party" (1949)
* "The Pink Room", or "The Escapists" (1945, first staged in 1952), rewritten as "Absolute Hell " (1987)
* "A Dead Secret" (1957)
* "Farewell, Farewell Eugene", adapted fromJohn Vari 's original play (1959)References
*
Who's Who in the Theatre 17th edition, Gale 1981, ISBN 0810302357 (for Ackland's own authoritative CV)
*The Oxford Companion to English Literature , ed Margaret Drabble, OUP 1995 ISBN 0198662211
*The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English , ed Jenny Stringer, OUP 1996 ISBN 0192122711
*Terence Rattigan, a Biography byGeoffrey Wansell , Fourth Estate 1995 ISBN 1857022071
*A Dictionary of Writers and Their Work byMichael Cox , OUP 2002 ISBN 0198662491
*The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia byEphraim Kurtz , Macmillan 1994 ISBN 0333616014
*Halliwell's Film,Video and DVD Guide , byJohn Walker , HarperCollins 2004 ISBN 0007190816
*Theatre Record (archived reviews of "Absolute Hell" 1988 and 1995)
* J.C. and Wendy Trewin, "The Arts Theatre, London, 1927-1981", 1986 ISBN 0-85430041-4.
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