philips

Talented actor had little faith in his own worth - Obituaries - smh.com.au

(link has a recent photo)

IF GENES have any bearing on life, Lloyd Lamble was destined to follow the performing arts after his father and grandfather. A successful actor in theatre, radio and films for some years before World War II, he left Australia in his 30s for a long and productive working life in Britain.

Lamble was born in Melbourne. His father, William H.S. Lamble, was a long-time secretary of the Musicians Union of Australia. William was a viola player with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and the Sisserman String Quartet, as well as an organist, teacher, arranger and composer. His grandfather was a professor of music.

William married Frances Potter in 1903, and Lloyd, who has died aged 94, was the youngest of their four boys. Lloyd sang in the Wesley College choir and became a junior announcer at the commercial radio station 3DB when he was 18.

Then he decided to try acting. His professional breakthrough came in 1934, when he was a last-minute replacement as the juvenile lead in a J.C. Williamson's production of Fresh Fields. Two years later he played Danny, the psychotic Welsh pageboy murderer in Night Must Fall. In the 1930s and 1940s he toured Australia and New Zealand in many leading roles, always well reviewed.

At other times he was straight man to Roy Rene (Mo), and a compere and fall guy to Bob Dyer. He also worked as a crooner in dance halls and appeared in radio serials.

When he discovered that some actors were being underpaid, he joined Actors Equity and was its president for some years.

Despite his suspected left-leaning political opinions he was enlisted to read radio war propaganda, probably for his strong voice that easily commanded authority. After the war the idea that he was a communist was spread, possibly by his second wife's influential family, and producers blacklisted him. He sold clothing door to door for a while, then in 1950 decided to leave for England, travelling on a forged passport.

In Australia he had toured in a production with Robert Morley, and one of his first roles in English film was in the 1952 comedy Curtain Up, with Morley and Margaret Rutherford. He continued in film, moved into television and worked constantly. He also wrote drama for radio and started a school of acting.

In his 70s Lamble played the lead role in four out of six plays in a six-month season with Dundee Rep Theatre in Scotland. After that he played in On Golden Pond on stage, then ran a long season in the West End in Me And My Girl. He worked in television until he was almost 80.

His first marriage, to Marjorie, failed, as did his second, to Barbara Smith, although it produced two children. It was not until 1944, when he was 30, that his life stabilised enough for him to eventually marry Leslie Jackson. They were together for more than 60 years.

In 1996 Lamble donated a copy of his unpublished memoirs to the National Library of Australia. They cover his childhood in Melbourne and his work in the 1930s and 1940s as a radio and stage actor. They reveal that, although he had been consistently well reviewed throughout his working life, he was not satisfied with his professional and personal accomplishments. Lamble is survived by Leslie, his son Tim, daughter Elizabeth, adopted son Lloyd jnr, adopted daughter Caroline, and three grandchildren.

(according to Wikipedia he died yesterday, April 9).

vladpyre

Sad to hear Lloyd Lamble passed away - a fine actor. Well that solves a long question mark over the query of whether he was still alive, now if only someone knew whether Lesley Brook (born 1917) was still alive? I've been trying to find that one out for years. Anybody know?

Moor Larkin

How curious. I recently got a copy of that film. It was directed by Ralph Smart. He was greatly involved with people who were labelled commie, with Hannah Weinstein's Sapphire Films, when they made the Robin Hood TV show in the mid-Fifties. I suppose there were a lot of commies in circulation at the time.

hoggers

Lloyd Lamble, 1914-2008

Obit from the Sydney Morning Herald

IF GENES have any bearing on life, Lloyd Lamble was destined to follow the performing arts after his father and grandfather. A successful actor in theatre, radio and films for some years before World War II, he left Australia in his 30s for a long and productive working life in Britain.
Lamble was born in Melbourne. His father, William H.S. Lamble, was a long-time secretary of the Musicians Union of Australia. William was a viola player with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and the Sisserman String Quartet, as well as an organist, teacher, arranger and composer. His grandfather was a professor of music.
William married Frances Potter in 1903, and Lloyd, who has died aged 94, was the youngest of their four boys. Lloyd sang in the Wesley College choir and became a junior announcer at the commercial radio station 3DB when he was 18.
Then he decided to try acting. His professional breakthrough came in 1934, when he was a last-minute replacement as the juvenile lead in a J.C. Williamson's production of Fresh Fields. Two years later he played Danny, the psychotic Welsh pageboy murderer in Night Must Fall. In the 1930s and 1940s he toured Australia and New Zealand in many leading roles, always well reviewed.
At other times he was straight man to Roy Rene (Mo), and a compere and fall guy to Bob Dyer. He also worked as a crooner in dance halls and appeared in radio serials.
When he discovered that some actors were being underpaid, he joined Actors Equity and was its president for some years.
Despite his suspected left-leaning political opinions he was enlisted to read radio war propaganda, probably for his strong voice that easily commanded authority. After the war the idea that he was a communist was spread, possibly by his second wife's influential family, and producers blacklisted him. He sold clothing door to door for a while, then in 1950 decided to leave for England, travelling on a forged passport.
In Australia he had toured in a production with Robert Morley, and one of his first roles in English film was in the 1952 comedy Curtain Up, with Morley and Margaret Rutherford. He continued in film, moved into television and worked constantly. He also wrote drama for radio and started a school of acting.
In his 70s Lamble played the lead role in four out of six plays in a six-month season with Dundee Rep Theatre in Scotland. After that he played in On Golden Pond on stage, then ran a long season in the West End in Me And My Girl. He worked in television until he was almost 80.
His first marriage, to Marjorie, failed, as did his second, to Barbara Smith, although it produced two children. It was not until 1944, when he was 30, that his life stabilised enough for him to eventually marry Leslie Jackson. They were together for more than 60 years.
In 1996 Lamble donated a copy of his unpublished memoirs to the National Library of Australia. They cover his childhood in Melbourne and his work in the 1930s and 1940s as a radio and stage actor. They reveal that, although he had been consistently well reviewed throughout his working life, he was not satisfied with his professional and personal accomplishments. Lamble is survived by Leslie, his son Tim, daughter Elizabeth, adopted son Lloyd jnr, adopted daughter Caroline, and three grandchildren.

howard 65

I'll always remember him as Joyce Grenfell's policeman boy friend in St Trinian's films.

He used to play a lot of reporters and journalists.

julian_craster

From The Times Online
May 28, 2008

Lloyd Lamble
Actor who was a familiar presence in post-war British radio, stage, cinema and television

A familiar presence in post-war British radio, stage, cinema and television, the actor Lloyd Lamble was born in Melbourne, the youngest of four boys. Both his father and grandfather had been musicians and young Lloyd sang in the Wesley college choir before becoming a junior radio announcer at the age of 18. His stage breakthrough came in 1934 as a last-minute replacement as the juvenile lead in Fresh Fields and he later played the psychotic Danny in Night Must Fall.

During the 1930s and 1940s he toured both Australia and New Zealand, and made his film debut in Strong is the Seed (1949). For a while he was the president of Actors Equity before accusations that he was a communist forced him to emigrate to Britain on a forged passport. He played countless authority figures in British films over the next two decades, especially policemen, including a recurring role in the St Trinian's series as Superintendent Samuel Kemp-Bird, or 'Sammy' as his hapless fiancée WPC Ruby Gates (played by Joyce Grenfell) calls him. As the series progressed poor Ruby was never any closer to marriage while the unctuously manipulative Sammy would once more smooth-talk her into again taking her life in her hands infiltrating the eponymous boarding school for ferocious young girls.

His scores of TV roles included appearing in Crossroads, The Prisoner and The Naked Civil Servant (1975). He continued to appear on stage until he was nearly 80, including a lengthy run on the West End in Me and My Girl.

Thrice married, he had a son, a daughter, an adopted son and an adopted daughter.

Lloyd Lamble, actor, was born on February 8, 1914. He died on April 9, 2008, aged 94

David Brent

In Australian terms, he had a very good innings.

A sad loss.

Dave.

dpgmel

Agree another very sad loss.

Only watched him last night as a Police Inspector in an episode of Journey to the Unknown.

R I P

Merton Park

Remember him appearing in The Appleyards, he played the Dad. He was a good actor, always reliable and appeared in lots of films and TV. He gave you that assurance that all was under control. Always funny as Ruby's boyfriend.

julian_craster

Obituary
Lloyd Lamble
Australian actor who played typically English characters

Gavin Gaughan
Tuesday June 10, 2008
The Guardian

Lloyd Lamble, who has died aged 94, was one of the ever-present supporting actors of British cinema during its monochrome era, best recalled as Joyce Grenfell's fiance in the St Trinian's series. Despite often portraying authoritarian English figures, in real life he was Australian, and had left that country after being suspected of communist sympathies.

Born in Melbourne to a family of musicians, Lamble attended Wesley college, where he sang in the choir. He had already worked on radio before making his stage debut in 1934. Touring the country and New Zealand, his work included singing and stooging for comedians, as well as straight plays.

Aghast at the low salaries for actors, Lamble was president for six years of what was then called Actors' and Announcers' Equity. His own radio work had included government propaganda during the second world war. In 1949 Australia's Commonwealth Investigation Service claimed, inaccurately, that he was "a definite communist". Stage and radio work dried up and, after a stint as a salesman, he fled to London, on a forged passport, in 1950.

Lamble had a receding hairline, a deep voice and an air of solidity which proved well-suited to trench-coated inspectors, court officials and military men. And the then thriving British film industry found him appropriately reliable in real life. His understated manner contrasted with the theatrical style of some of his co-stars, especially in comedy.

One of his first films was Curtain Up (1952), starring Robert Morley. Others included Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Our Man in Havana (1959) and The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960). Having already worked for Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953), the pair then cast Lamble in The Belles of St Trinian's (1954), as the "silly old superintendent" fiance of Grenfell, the enthusiastic WPC Ruby Gates. He returned for Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) and The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960). Despite nearly losing her to Terry Thomas in the first sequel, he was always putting off Gates's marriage plans, causing her to complain, "you used to call me your little blue lamp baby".

Lamble's television debut was in The Passing Show (1951), a series of musical biographies, followed by a live Sunday night play, No Smoking! (1952). His big screen experience was invaluable for early filmed ITV series such as Douglas Fairbanks Presents, William Tell and the short-lived Errol Flynn Theatre. Other guest appearances extended from the prosaic and unintentionally hilarious Fabian of the Yard (1955) to the polished surrealism of The Avengers (1965), as a vanished scientist, and The Prisoner (1967), as a ministry man.

More important roles came in two Armchair Theatre segments in 1960, Clive Exton's Where I Live (1960), as the favoured son of an ailing father, and The Stranger, by Angus Wilson. The Outstation (BBC2, 1968) was a tropical tale, adapted from Somerset Maugham by Simon Raven. Unfortunately for Lamble, he was a regular on the motel soap Crossroads in its early years; fortunately for his reputation and for posterity, none of his episodes are known to exist.

One of Lamble's most frequently screened appearances was early on in Philip Mackie's The Naked Civil Servant (1975). As Quentin Crisp's staid father, he demands of John Hurt's Crisp: "Do you intend to spend your whole life admiring yourself?" And receives the unforgettable reply: "If I possibly can."

Returning to the theatre in the early 1970s, Lamble had a successful season in Dundee, and was later seen in plays as varied as Macbeth and Alan Bleasdale's bawdy satire Having a Ball. The 1980s West End revival of Me and My Girl, with script additions by Stephen Fry, was one of Lamble's last engagements before retiring. In 1996 he donated an unpublished autobiography, dealing with his Australian career and displaying some of the insecurity common in the profession, to the National Library of Australia.

He was married three times, the third time to fellow actor Leslie Jackson, who came with him to Britain. She survives him along with a son and daughter, an adopted son and daughter and three grandchildren.

Lloyd Lamble, actor, born February 8 1914; died April 9 2008