Oscar Profile #422: Ralph Richardson

Born December 19, 1902 in Cheltenham, England, Ralph Richardson’s parents were eccentric artists. When he was four, his parents got into a row over the wallpaper his mother had chosen for his father’s study. His mother left his two older brothers with their devout Quaker father who raised them in his religion and took Ralph with her and raised him in her Roman Catholic religion.

Richardson enjoyed being an altar boy so much so that his mother assumed he was destined to become a priest and enrolled him in a seminary at 15, which he promptly left. Intending to be an artist like his parents, he gravitated instead toward acting, making his stage debut in 1920. He married actress Muriel Hewitt in 1924 with whom he acted in various productions before she became too ill to work.

On stage for the remainder of his life, the actor enjoyed making films as well. Like contemporaries Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, he excelled at Shakespearean roles, but unlike them, preferred smaller character roles to major starring ones. On screen from 1933, he was excellent throughout the decade in such films as Things to Come, The Man Who Could Work Miracles, South Riding, The Citadel and The Four Feathers.

Richardson joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of World War II. His wife Muriel died in 1942. In 1944, he married actress Meriel Forbes with whom he had a son and to whom he would be married for the remainder of his life. In 1947, he became the first actor of his generation to be knighted for his service to the theatre, beating Olivier by one year and Gielgud by six.

The actor attained international stardom in the late 1940s with his starring role in the 1948 film, The Fallen Idol, a 1949 release in the U.S., and 1949’s The Heiress, his first Hollywood film, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

Richardson’s performance in 1952’s The Sound Barrier, released in the U.S. as Breaking the Sound Barrier earned him Best Actor awards from the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics and BAFTA. It did not, however, lead to more starring roles as the actor returned to supporting work in such films as Richard III, Oscar Wilde and Exodus. In 1962, he had another plum starring role in Long Day’s Journey into Night, but once again returned to supporting roles in such films as Woman of Straw, Doctor Zhivago, The Wrong Box and Oh! What a Lovely War.

In the 1970s, he was in such films as O Lucky Man! and Rollerball. In 1982, he starred in a TV remake of Witness for the Prosecution, the last production in which he was seen before his death in 1983. The TV mini-series, Wagner and the films Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Give My Regards to Broad Street and Invitation to the Wedding were all released posthumously.
1984’s Greystoke brought him a posthumous Oscar nomination.

Ralph Richardson died after a series of strokes on October 10, 1983 at 80.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE CITADEL (1938), directed by King Vidor

Vidor’s film of A.J. Cronin’s masterful novel about the British medical system was named the year’s Best Film by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. NBR cited both Robert Donat as the film’s protagonist and Richardson as his stalwart friend for their performances in the years before they gave out individual awards by category. AMPAS nominated it for four Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Donat) and Screenplay. The film is faithful to the novel except that it transposes the fates of Richardson’s character and Donat’s wife (Rosalind Russell) to give it a somewhat less sad ending.

THE HEIRESS (1949), directed by William Wyler

Richardson received his first Oscar nomination for playing Olivia de Havilland’s tyrannical father in his first Hollywood film, reprising a role he had played on the London stage opposite Vivien Leigh, surprisingly winning the part over Basil Rathbone who had originated the role on Broadway, winning a Tony opposite Wendy Hiller. He once again won both the National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle awards for both this and Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol in which he played the butler in a foreign embassy in London suspected of murdering his wife.

THE SOUND BARRIER (1952), directed by David Lean

For the third time, Richardson won both National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle awards for his portrayal of the oil magnate who also designs planes in this fictionalized account of the breaking of the sound barrier, which as everyone knew at the time was accomplished by American Chuck Yeager in 1947, not the British. The film also drew heavy criticism for its depiction of the breaking of the sound barrier. Engineers have said that if it were done the way it was depicted in the film, the pilot would have been killed. Nevertheless, it won an Oscar for Best Sound Recording.

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962), directed by Sidney Lumet

Lumet’s film of Eugene O’Neill’s posthumously produced semi-autobiographical play earned Cannes Film Festival awards for all four of its stars. Katharine Hepburn won for Best Actress as the drug-addicted mother, while Richardson as the skinflint retired actor, Jason Robards as the alcoholic older son and Dean Stockwell as the consumptive writer younger son shared the Best Actor prize. Robards, singularly, won the National Board of Review award for Best Actor. Only Hepburn went on to receive Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her performance, the film’s lone recognition from APAS.

GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES (1984), directed by Hugh Hudson

Richardson was posthumously nominated for his second Oscar as the 6th Earl of Greystoke, grandfather of John Clayton, the man raised in the jungle by apes and subsequently known as Tarzan, Lord of the Apes not in the film where he is called either John or Lord Greystoke. The film, which is dedicated to Richardson, was the screen debut of former model Andie MacDowell, whose voice as Jane is dubbed by Glenn Close. It was also the English acting debut of American born French actor Christopher Lambert who plays Tarzan. In addition to Richardson, the film received Oscar nominations for Adapted Screenplay and Makeup.