November 1, 1903– Max Adrian was an acclaimed, nimble comic actor & singer, born in Northern Ireland. He was born simply as Max Bor, & when he was still a youth he changed his name to the more theatrical Max Cavendish.
Like so many of us, Adrian began his career as a chorus boy. He first worked at a silent moving-picture house, as part of the entertainment while the reels were being changed. He was really digging the applause & decided to become an actor. In 1930, he joined the Northampton Repertory Company where he played 20 roles a year. He soon moved to London & found work on The West End in an early Terence Rattigan comedy, First Episode (1934), later going with the play when it transferred to Broadway. On both sides of the Atlantic, Adrian played roles in productions of Sophocles, Shakespeare, & Shaw.
In 1960, he joined Peter Hall‘s newly-formed Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon. Adrian also became one of the original members of Laurence Olivier‘s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic beginning in 1963, where he appeared as Polonius in the opening production of Hamlet with Peter O’Toole in the title role. He went on to appear in Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, Shaw’s Saint Joan, & Ibsen’s The Master Builder.
In the late 1960s, Adrian toured as George Bernard Shaw in his one-man presentation By George. Most importantly for Musical Theatre fans like me, Adrian originated the role of Doctor Pangloss in Leonard Bernstein‘s brilliant, tuneful operetta Candide (1956). His terrifically funny performance is captured on the fabulous Original Broadway Cast Recording.
He appeared in films also, starting in 1934 with The Primrose Path, & most notably in the Ken Russell films The Boy Friend (1971), The Devils (1971); & The Music Lovers (1970), plus as The Dauphin in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944).
My favorite Adrian performance is in Russell’s excellent homoerotic B&W film Song Of Summer (1968), about the final years in the life of experimental music composer Frederick Delius, who was blind & paralyzed, who was cared for by young musician Eric Fenby who lived with the composer & his wife, working as Delius’s amanuensis (a fancy-ass word for music transcriber).
He also found work in TV series & films including as a celebrated Fagin the BBC’s Oliver Twist (1966) & Doctor Who.
Adrian’s style of acting was highly theatrical & very camp, something rare in the early days of film & TV. He was known to appear in drag at London & Paris clubs at a time when that sort of thing could get you arrested.
His partner, or as they would have written in his day, his longtime companion was theatre producer/director Laurier Lister, famous for his clever intimate musical revues in the 1940s & 1950s, often starring Adrian. They were a couple for more than 30 years.
Adrian’s took his final curtain call in 1973, gone from a heart attack at his home in the English countryside, after returning finishing filming Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle for the BBC. Among those who eulogized him at the well attended funeral were Olivier & Alec Guinness.
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