John Clements

John Clements

1910-04-25 – 1988-04-06 (age 77) London, England, UK
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Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir John Selby Clements, CBE (25 April 1910 – 6 April 1988) was an English actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.

Clements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge University then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company. He made his first stage appearance in 1930. Clements founded the Intimate Theatre at Palmers Green in 1935, which is a combined repertory and try-out theatre. He appeared in almost 200 plays, and presented a number of plays in the West End as actor-manager-producer. He also started his film work in 1933. Clements was the artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre from 1966 to 1973.

He married the actress Kay Hammond and together they became a critical success on stage with their West End revival of Noel Coward's play Private Lives in 1945. In 1952 they both appeared in Clements' own play The Happy Marriage, an adaptation of Jean-Bernard Luc's Le Complexe de Philemon. Clements starred as Edward Moutlon Barrett in the musical Robert and Elizabeth, a successful adaptation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. His stepson is the actor John Standing.

As a film actor John Clements came to prominence when the film director Victor Saville chose him to star opposite Ralph Richardson in South Riding (1938). The two actors were reunited in the very successful The Four Feathers (1939). After this Clements' film career was somewhat intermittent although he made a series of British war films for Ealing Studios and British Aviation Pictures, such as Convoy (1940), Ships with Wings (1942), Tomorrow We Live (1943), and as Yugoslav guerrilla leader Milosh Petrovitch in Undercover (1943). He had a cameo role (as Advocate General) in Gandhi (1982).

Clements was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1956 and knighted in 1968.

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Known For

Gandhi
Gandhi

1982

as Advocate General

The Four Feathers
The Four Feathers

1939

as Harry Faversham

Things to Come
Things to Come

1936

as The Airman (uncredited)

Oh! What a Lovely War
Oh! What a Lovely War

1969

as Gen. von Moltke

Convoy
Convoy

1940

as Lieutenant Cranford

The Silent Enemy
The Silent Enemy

1958

as The Admiral

Knight Without Armour
Knight Without Armour

1937

as Poushkoff

The Mind Benders
The Mind Benders

1963

as Major Hall

Rembrandt
Rembrandt

1936

as Govaert Flinck

Undercover
Undercover

1943

as Milos Petrovitch

Train of Events
Train of Events

1949

as Raymond Hillary

Once in a New Moon
Once in a New Moon

1935

as Edward Teale

They Came to a City
They Came to a City

1944

as Joe Dinmore

Ships with Wings
Ships with Wings

1941

as Lt. Dick Stacey

South Riding
South Riding

1938

as Joe Astell

This England
This England

1941

as John Rookeby

Tomorrow We Live
Tomorrow We Live

1943

as Jean Baptiste

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Star of the Circus

1938

as Paul Huston, alias Truxa

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Call Of The Blood

1948

as Julius Ikon