Price, Dennis (1915-1973), actor, was born Dennistoun John Franklin Rose
Price, 23rd June 1915 in Ruscombe, Berkshire, the younger son and second
of
three children of Brigadier-General Thomas Rose Caradoc Price, an army
officer descended from a Cornish baronet's family, the Prices of
Trengwainton, and his wife Dorothy Patience, daughter of Sir Henry
Verey,official referee of the Supreme Court of Judiciature. Price was
educated at Radley College and read French and Latin at Worcester College,
Oxford, where he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society. On leaving
Oxford, without a degree he studied for the stage at the Embassy Theatre
school, and made his London debut at the Queen's Theatre on 6th September,
1937, with (Sir) John Gielgud in Shakespeare's Richard II.
In 1939 he married the beautiful blonde actress, Joan Schofield, daughter
of
Major-General Arthur Cecil Temperley of Beaconfield. They had two daughters;
but the marriage was soon undermined by his homosexual predilections and
increasing appetite of alcohol.
After being invalided out of the Royal Artillery in 1942, Price joined the
company of Noel Coward who was so impressed by his talent that in 1943 he
gave Price the leading role of Charles Condamine in his play Blithe Spirit,
at the Duchess Theatre. In 1944 he won his first starring role on screen
in
A Canterbury Tale, directed by Michael Powell. A man with a strong presence,
tall, handsome, and urbane, Price swiftly became on of Britain's leading
international film stars. He played the title role in The Bad Lord Byron
(1948), was chosen by Ivor Novello for the lead in the Technicolour film
of
Novello's musical, The Dancing Years (1949), and reached the peak of his
career with Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he was supremely
sardonic as the heartless murderer of eight ducal cousins, all played by
(Sir) Alec Guinness.
Joan Scofield divorced Price in 1950, and the British film recession
brought a sharp decline in his career. On 19 April 1954 he was found
unconscious in his gas-filled flat in Egerton Gardens, Kensington [a very
swish address, about 200 yards from the Victoria and Albert Museum], but
the
dramatic publicity generated by his attempted suicide was the spur to a
revival in his fortunes. He starred on the South African stage in Separate
Tables (1957), made an acclaimed Broadway debut in Heartbreak House (1959)
[not sure about this - if it is the play for which he left The Navy Lark,
it flopped quite badly !], and had further notable film roles in Private's
Progress (1955), The Naked Truth (1957), I'm All Right, Jack (1959), Tunes
of Glory (1960), and Tamahine (1963).
In 1965, his nonchalant interpretation of the butler, Jeeves, in the BBC
television series, The World of Wooster, delighted its creator, (Sir) Pelham
Grenville Wodehouse, who felt that Price had 'that essential touch of Jeeves
mystery'.
Troubles with the Inland Revenue caused what he termed 'a strategic retreat'
in 1966 from his home in Curzon Street, Mayfair [an even posher address
than
the Kensington one], to settle on the Channel Island of Sark. he was
declared bankrupt in 1967. He died from cirrhosis of the liver at the
Princess Elizabeth Hospital, Guernsey, 6 October, 1973.
Sources - The Times, 8 October 1973; Terence Pettigrew, British Film
Character Actors, 1982; personal knowledge.
Michael Thornton
