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12-03-2009, 06:36 PM

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Marky B Marky B is glad he went to Poland Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Billingham,Cleveland Gender: Posts: 7,069 Thanks: 1 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My Mood: Country: iTrader: (0)	Russell Thorndyke Watching The Paul O Grady Show,guest Celia Imrie mentioned that Dame Sybil Thorndyke's brother,Russel,was not only an actor,but created Dr Syn. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0861343/ Ta Ta Marky B I am special. The heavens always open for me.

13-03-2009, 01:56 AM

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Rob Compton

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Marky B

Watching The Paul O Grady Show,guest Celia Imrie mentioned that Dame Sybil Thorndyke's brother,Russel,was not only an actor,but created Dr Syn.

Russell Thorndike
Ta Ta
Marky B

They're great books, and really worth reading, Marky - there are 6 or 7 of them

rgds
Rob

13-03-2009, 01:28 PM

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CaptainWaggett

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He once played King Lear to Dame Sybil's Fool. Here's the Oxford DNB on him.
"A proud and long-standing member of a theatrical clan, Russell Thorndike remained devoted to his wife, sister, and overacting, in approximately that order"

Quote:

Thorndike, (Arthur) Russell (1885–1972), actor and writer, was born on 6 February 1885 in the cathedral precincts, Rochester, one of two sons and two daughters of the Revd Arthur John Webster Thorndike (1853–1917), a minor canon, and his wife, Agnes Macdonald Bowers. The actress Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882–1976) was his sister. He was educated at St George's School, Windsor, and became a chorister of the Chapel Royal: he later proudly recalled singing in that choir at Queen Victoria's funeral. Thorndike then went on to the King's School in Rochester.

In 1903 Thorndike joined Ben Greet's dramatic academy, and he made his first stage appearance as John Rugby in The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, in 1904. His first London appearance was at the Marlborough Theatre, Holloway, in 1905. After performing with Ben Greet's company for three years Thorndike and his sister toured in the company across America. He acted in the Shakespeare season at the Court Theatre, London (1909), and he subsequently toured South Africa, India, and the Far East with Matheson Lang (1911–13). On his return he joined Miss Horniman's repertory company at the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester.

During the First War Thorndike served with the Westminster dragoons in Egypt and Gallipoli, where he was severely wounded. In 1916, on being invalided home, he joined one of the very first Old Vic companies, directed by Lilian Baylis, as leading man and sometimes producer–director. On 17 August 1918 Thorndike married Rosemary Benvenuta Dowson (1894/5–1970), daughter of a well-known actress, Rosina Filippi, and Henry Martin Dowson, a brewer.

Though never as starry or mesmeric as Sybil, Russell was always a useful member of a classical stage company. In two wartime seasons he played many major Shakespearian parts, such as King John, Richard II, and King Lear. In the latter Sybil was Fool to his Lear, and on the first night the storm scene was performed while an air raid was taking place. During the 1919–20 season he was leading man and joint director of plays. Subsequently he joined his sister and her husband, Lewis Casson, at the Little Theatre in John Adam Street, London, ‘in their attempt to establish an English Grand Guignol’ (The Times). Thorndike wrote two of the plays himself, and had notable success as an actor in Reginald Berkeley's play about a condemned prisoner, Eight O'Clock, and also as Peer Gynt in Henrik Ibsen's play.

In 1927 Thorndike came into his own, and escaped his sister's long shadow, when he wrote and starred at the Lyceum in Dr Syn, a smuggling melodrama, which drew on his considerable experience of Grand Guignol. He was to play this role at home and abroad, in addition to a variety of Shakespearian parts, for much of the rest of his long career. In 1929–30 he led the Ben Greet Company on another Shakespearian tour of America.

Thorndike published a dozen books, many of which were based on his fascination with Shakespeare, or with smugglers. His works included several novels, as well as a first, rather slender, biography of his sister (1929): this contained fascinating insights into their childhood in the Rochester Cathedral close. In 1938 he wrote a memoir of Lilian Baylis. Children of the Garter (1937) was a memoir of his early life in Windsor and as a boy soloist in the Chapel Royal. In later years Thorndike became a favourite with generations of children for his annual appearances in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan as Smee, yet another pirate; and he also frequently led the summer companies at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park.

During the last three years of his life, Thorndike was too fragile to work in the theatre, though he continued to lecture on a long theatrical life which had started when, as a Windsor choirboy, he had been deputed to guide Sir Henry Irving around the castle. Despite professional success, he had financial problems in later life and was declared bankrupt in 1952. A proud and long-standing member of a theatrical clan, Russell Thorndike remained devoted to his wife, sister, and overacting, in approximately that order, across more than half a century of greasepaint touring. It was his proud belief that, were all of Shakespeare's texts to be lost in a fire, he could rewrite almost all from memory. He died at his home, King's Head House, Foulsham, near Norwich, on 7 November 1972.

SHERIDAN MORLEY
Sources The Times (9 Nov 1972) · WWW · R. Thorndike, Children of the Garter (1937) · R. Thorndike, Sybil Thorndike [1929] · J. C. Trewin, Sybil Thorndike (1955) · S. Morley, Sybil Thorndike (1977) · ‘Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil’, DNB · b. cert. · m. cert. · d. cert. · F. Gaye, ed., Who’s who in the theatre, 14th edn (1967)

Archives
FILM BFI NFTVA, performance footage

Likenesses Sasha, double portrait, photograph, 1925 (with Alma Taylor), Hult. Arch. · Sasha, photograph, 1925, Hult. Arch. · Sasha, double portraits, photographs, 1929 (with Jane Wood), Hult. Arch.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Oxford University Press 2004–9 All rights reserved

Sheridan Morley, ‘Thorndike, (Arthur) Russell (1885–1972)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55526, accessed 13 March 2009]

(Arthur) Russell Thorndike (1885–1972): doi:10.1093/ref

dnb/55526

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