Submitted by
Nicky Smith
John Justin
John Justin, who has died aged 85, was an actor with the looks, bearing, voice
and elegance of a matinee idol, which enabled him to pursue a steady career on
the stage and in films.
He proved particularly adept in Shakespeare, making a notable Paris in Troilus
and Cressida and an honest Horatio (to Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann in
Hamlet) at the Stratford Memorial Theatre in the 1940s. At the Old Vic, his
Romeo and Orlando in the 1950s were hailed as promising.
Justin then played "a snarling, mouthing" Richard II which never rose above
self-pity at the Old Vic in 1959; the performance prompted the critic Caryl
Brahms to predict that it would "haunt me through every Richard II that I shall
see".
His film career began in 1940 when he played the dispossessed Prince Ahmad in
Alexander Korda's Thief of Bagdad, a dashing adventure with special effects
which was begun in Britain during the Blitz and completed at Hollywood.
After the war Justin's tall, athletic figure and fair hair fulfilled every
foreigner's idea of an Englishman, and he went on to make a series of generally
unmemorable films in America, as well as in France and Italy.
In 1954, he made Seagulls Over Sorrento back in Britain, then played the
puzzled sleuth in The Teckman Mystery, which led to a sequel in the form of a
popular television serial. As well as playing the charming ADC in Island in the
Sun, he put his repertory experience to good use in The Man Who Loved Redheads
(1955).
His part demanded that he start out as a young sprig of 29 who gradually
aged "without losing the assets to win the hearts of girls to whom he has been
attracted in his search for the ideal woman" - as he described it in an on-set
interview.
Justin continued to be in demand for the screen into the 1970s, when he had
smaller parts in Ken Russell's films Savage Messiah, Lisztomania, and
Valentino. His last film role was in the lacklustre Disney comedy-drama
Trenchcoat (1983).
Justin's greatest affection was for acting, and that meant the stage. Since
Shakespeare was the world's greatest writer of dialogue, Justin once confided,
the Bard was easy to play: the actor did not have to make up for the
deficiencies of the script. But the three months each year fulfilling a
Hollywood contract in America meant he could maintain his family comfortably
while performing on stage in England.
The son of an Argentine, John Justin was born John Justinian de Ledesma at
Knightsbridge, London, on November 24 1917. His father, who later became a
naturalised Englishman, took John to his ranch in Argentina before his son was
one.
Young John returned to go to Bryanston in Dorset with a view to becoming a
professional man. But the acting bug took firm hold, and at 16 he left to join
the Plymouth Repertory Company where he played parts which ranged from boys to
80-year-olds.
His enraged father took him away to learn farming in Norfolk. But John soon
joined the Liverpool Repertory. Buoyed up by new confidence, he came to London
where he could find only walk-on parts at suburban theatres and work as a film
extra.
He was so discouraged that he took a third class passage to Argentina; but he
soon recovered his health and spirits, and sought stage work in Buenos Aires
before working his passage back to England as a deck-hand.
Justin's grandmother then took a hand, paying for him to spend three seasons at
Rada. Her faith was rewarded when he found his first West End work with John
Gielgud's Repertory Company. He was Hugh Randolph in Dodie Smith's domestic
comedy, Dear Octopus (Queen's, 1938) and a footman in The Importance of Being
Earnest (Globe, 1939).
Justin volunteered for the RAF, and was allowed to finish The Thief of Bagdad,
which gave him badly needed time to improve his mathematics. Although injured
in a crash, he became an instructor and then flew VIPs.
His return to the theatre in 1945 was as Richard Rowan, the writer-protagonist
in James Joyce's play Exiles at the Torch. After starring in The Thracian
Horses at the Lyric, Hammersmith, he showed that he had not reached maturity in
John Fernald's revival of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Arts in 1952.
But he went on to have leading parts at the Royal Court in Miss Hargreaves,
which starred Margaret Rutherford; at the Duchess in Someone to Talk To (1956);
and at the Aldwych (1957) in the comedy Olive Ogilvie.
In classical leads at the Old Vic, he played Mellefont to Maggie Smith's Lady
Plyant in Congreve's DoubleDealer and John Worthing in The Importance of Being
Earnest. He made his American stage debut in Philadelphia and New York in
Little Moon of Alban.
When working-class drama came into vogue, Justin felt no urge or occasion to
adapt his voice or manners to the demands of "kitchen sink" drama. He did not
mind being dubbed "the Wolfit of Regent's Park", an allusion to the stalwart
Shakespearean actor-manager Donald Wolfit. At the Open Air, he enjoyed playing
Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing; the banished Duke in As You Like It; and
Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night.
Justin was also Giles Ralston in The Mousetrap and Badger in Milne's Toad of
Toad Hall. He made a permanent addition to the script of the latter when he
picked up an hourglass and said, "It's only half past December"; it has
remained in the script ever since.
Justin took the parts of Prince Escerny and Puntschu in Peter Barnes's
adaptation for the Nottingham Playhouse of the Wedekind play Lulu; it was seen
at the Royal Court in 1970 and the West End (Apollo, 1971).
He toured as Winston Churchill in A Man and His Wife in 1974, and went to West
Germany in 1975 to give recitals of Blake and Shakespeare for the British
Council.
John Justin, who died on November 29, was married three times; first to the
dancer Pola Nirenska; then the actress Barbara Murray, with whom he had three
daughters. His third wife was Alison McMurdo.
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