Daniel Massey

This incisive character player was the son of acclaimed stage and screen actors Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen and brother of Anna Massey. Always prominently cast and adept at sophisticated roles, Daniel Massey has acted primarily on the stage, but has made fairly regular film and TV appearances since the late 1950s. He first appeared in film at age eight in his godfather Noel Coward's moving tribute to the WWII British military, "In Which We Serve" (1942). Massey proceeded to cut his acting teeth on the British stage and did not return to films for 15 years. His first important film credit was as part of the sterling company enacting John Osborne's blistering play, "The Entertainer" (1960).

Massey began to conquer audiences on the other side of the Atlantic when he played one of the leading roles in the Broadway musical, "She Loves Me" (1963). With his dapper appearance and polished, actorly flair, he again invoked his stage origins in his most acclaimed US film performance, as his own godfather in the otherwise disappointing biopic of Gertrude Lawrence, "Star!" (1968). Massey upstaged Julie Andrews in his carefully realized and slightly parodic rendition of Coward and won himself a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Subsequent films included biopics ("Mary, Queen of Scots" 1971, "The Incredible Sarah" 1976) and courtroom drama ("Scandal" 1989; "In the Name of the Father", as the prosecuting attorney, 1993). Massey also showed a fondness for old-fashioned entertainment with the fun horror fare of "Vault of Horror" (1973), in which he acted opposite his sister, and the likable remake, "The Cat and the Canary" (1979). His fop was but one memorable item in Nicholas Roeg's obsessive "Bad Timing" (1980).

In between stage work, Massey worked in TV ranging from fine PBS adaptations ("The Roads to Freedom" 1972, "The Golden Bowl" 1973) to offbeat turns in eclectic fare. He played Trotsky in HBO's "Stalin" (1992), romanced Marilu Henner in "Love With a Perfect Stranger" (Showtime, 1986) and was moving as an AIDS sufferer in "Intimate Contact" (HBO, 1987).

• Also Credited As:
  Daniel Raymond Massey
• Born:
  October 10, 1933 in London, England, United Kingdom
• Died:
  March 25, 1998.
• Job Titles:
  Actor

Family

• Daughter: Alice Pearl Massey. mother, Penelope Wilton; survived him
• Father: Raymond Massey. born on August 30, 1896 in Toronto; died on July 29, 1983 in Los Angeles; was married to Massey s mother from 1929 to 1939; prominent stage and screen actor, in many films including The Old Dark House (1932), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), A Matter of Life and Death (1945) and East of Eden (1955)
• Mother: Adrianne Allen. born on February 7, 1907 in Manchester, England; died on September 14, 1993 in Montreux, Switzerland; worked primarily onstage in plays ranging from Easy Virtue (1926) to Pride and Prejudice (1935) and Edward My Son (1948); later played character roles; acted in a few films, including The Woman Between (1931) and The October Man (1947)
• Sister: Anna Massey. born in Sussex, England on August 11, 1937; made London stage debut in The Reluctant Debutante (1958); prominent in TV and film; perhaps best remembered in the latter capacity in Michael Powell s Peeping Tom (1960) and Alfred Hitchcock s Frenzy (1972)
• Son: Paul Massey. mother, Adrienne Corri; survived him
• Step-father: William Whitney.

Education

• King s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, MA, 1956

Milestones

• 1942 Made feature film debut at age eight in In Which We Serve , co-directed and starring his godfather, Noel Coward
• 1956 Stage acting debut in Peril at End House in Worthing
• 1957 London stage debut, The Happiest Millionaire
• 1958 Returned to films to make his second feature and play first adult role, Girls at Sea
• 1963 Played on Broadway in the musical, She Loves Me ; billed third after Jack Cassidy and Barbara Cook; American stage debut
• 1968 First US film, Star! , in which he played Noel Coward and received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor
• 1971 Played Robert Dudley opposite Glenda Jackson and Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots
• 1972 Had featured role in the British TV adaptation of War and Peace
• 1972 Earliest US TV appearances included his leading role in the PBS adaptation, The Roads to Freedom , based on a trilogy of novels by Jean-Paul Sartre
• 1973 Acted in the six-part made-for-TV miniseries, The Golden Bowl , based on the novel by Henry James; miniseries was aired on PBS in the USA
• 1973 Acted opposite his sister Anna Massey in the Midnight Mass segment of the five-part horror anthology film, Vault of Horror
• 1977 Scored a critical success opposite Claire Bloom in the London stage production of Ibsen s Rosmersholm
• 1981 Last feature film for eight years, Escape to Victory
• 1986 Earliest work made specifically for American TV, the Showtime TV-movie, Love With a Perfect Stranger
• 1987 Co-starred with Claire Bloom in the HBO production Intimate Contact , playing a businessman who contracts AIDS after a liaison during a trip to Asia
• 1987 Starred opposite Diana Rigg and Julia McKenzie in the London production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical Follies
• 1989 Returned to film work with a role in the British-made feature, Scandal
• 1993 Last feature film, played the prosecutor in In the Name of the Father
• 1995 Final London stage appearance, originating the role of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler in Taking Sides
• 1996 Returned to US stage reprising his London role in Taking Sides , co-starring with Ed Harris
• Joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, appeared in Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night
• Returned to Broadway to play in the revival of the Lerner and Loewe musical, Gigi
• Starred in the
• Was a member of the company of the National Theatre; had one of his biggest stage successes in Man and Superman
• Was diagnosed with Hodgkin s disease in the early 1990s