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Robert Guy Newton was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially…
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Investigate this subjectRobert Guy Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys.
Robert Guy Newton was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard-living life, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
Robert Guy Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard-living life, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
Beginning his career in theatre in the 1920s, Newton appeared in numerous plays in the West End, including Bitter Sweet by Noël Coward. In 1939 he was Horatio in Hamlet at the Old Vic theatre opposite Laurence Olivier's Prince Hamlet. After serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, he had his major break on screen playing the lead in This Happy Breed (1944) and starring in Olivier's version of Henry V (1944). These appearances saw British exhibitors vote him the 10th most popular British film star of 1944.
Newton is best remembered for his portrayal of the feverish-eyed Long John Silver in the 1950 RKO-Disney British adaptation of Treasure Island, the film that became the standard for screen portrayals of historical pirates. He starred as Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in Blackbeard the Pirate in 1952 and Long John Silver again in the 1954 film of the same title, which spawned a television series in the mid-1950s. Born in Dorset in the West Country of England and growing up in Cornwall near Land's End, Newton exaggerated his West Country accent for his pirate roles and is credited with popularising the stereotypical "pirate speech". Newton has become the "patron saint" of the annual International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Robert Guy Newton was born on 1 June 1905 in Shaftesbury, Dorset, a son of the landscape painter Algernon Newton, R.A. He lived with his family in Lamorna near Penzance, Cornwall, from 1912 to 1918. He attended St. Petroc's preparatory school in Bude, where he won a shooting competition in 1916, and then Exeter School and St. Bartholomew's School in Newbury, Berkshire.
His acting career began at the age of 16 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1921. He appeared in many repertory shows until he went to Canada where he worked on a cattle ranch for a year.
He returned to England and performed in many plays in the West End of London, including Bitter Sweet by Noël Coward, The Letter with Gladys Cooper, and Her Cardboard Lover with Tallulah Bankhead. He also appeared in Private Lives on Broadway, taking over the role from his friend Laurence Olivier. From 1932 to 1934, he was the manager of the Shilling Theatre in Fulham, London. He had a small role in the film Reunion (1932).
Newton was put under contract to Alexander Korda who cast him in small roles in the cinema films Fire Over England (1937), Dark Journey (1937), Farewell Again (1937) and The Squeaker (1937). He also had a part as Cassius in the abandoned version of I, Claudius and in 21 Days (shot in 1937, released 1940). Newton was borrowed by 20th Century Fox for The Green Cockatoo (1937). Newton had a good role supporting Charles Laughton in Vessel of Wrath (1938). He had another strong part in Yellow Sands (1939) and had his first film lead in Dead Men are Dangerous (1939). He made another with Laughton, Jamaica Inn (1939), playing the romantic male lead, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1939, he played Horatio to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet at the Old Vic, in a production that included Alec Guinness and Michael Redgrave. Newton kept busy as a film actor, appearing in Poison Pen (1939) and Hell's Cargo (1939).
Newton continued primarily as a supporting actor in films, appearing in Gaslight (1940), Busman's Honeymoon (1940), Bulldog Sees It Through (1940), Channel Incident (1940) and Major Barbara (1941), directed by Gabriel Pascal from the play by George Bernard Shaw. Newton got another chance as a star in Hatter's Castle (1942), opposite Deborah Kerr and James Mason. He consolidated his status by playing opposite Anna Neagle in the Amy Johnson biopic They Flew Alone (1942), playing Jim Mollison.
Newton enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1940, and saw active service in the rank of an Able Seaman on board HMS Britomart, which fought as an escort ship on several Russian convoys during World War II. After one and a half years in the Royal Navy he was medically discharged in 1942.
On resuming his film career, Newton played the lead in This Happy Breed (1944), a role played on stage by Noël Coward. Directed by David Lean, it was a huge hit. So too was the Laurence Olivier version of Henry V (1944), in which Newton played Ancient Pistol. These appearances helped British exhibitors vote him the 10th most popular British film star of 1944. During the war, he starred in the West End in No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was a hit.
Newton had the star role in a thriller Night Boat to Dublin (1946), then had a showy cameo role in Odd Man Out (1947); this performance later was immortalised in Harold Pinter's play Old Times. He stayed in leads for Temptation Harbour (1947) and Snowbound (1948). Lean cast him as Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist (1948), a huge success critically and commercially.
He then made a series of films with Hollywood stars and/or financing: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948), a film noir with Joan Fontaine and Burt Lancaster; Obsession (1949), a thriller directed by Edward Dmytryk, playing a cuckolded husband who exacts revenge on his wife. He played Long John Silver in Walt Disney's version of Treasure Island (1950), shot in the UK, with Bobby Driscoll and directed by Byron Haskin. Less well known is Waterfront (1950) in which Richard Burton appeared in his third film.
His final performance on stage was in the 1950 production of Gaslight with Rosamund John at the Vaudeville Theatre.
Treasure Island's success prompted Newton to return to Hollywood. He was one of several British actors in Soldiers Three (1951), an Imperial adventure tale. He returned to Britain for Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951) to play Thomas Arnold, then was cast by 20th Century Fox as Javert in thei
Source: Robert Newton (CC BY-SA)
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