Tony Church

Published Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 12:00 by Patrick Newley

A leading classical actor, Tony Church was a founder member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a key player with the National Theatre. He was a also a founder director of the Northcott Theatre, Exeter, and in later life enjoyed success in America with the Denver Center Company in Colorado.

Born James Anthony Church, the son of Ronald Frederic and Margaret Fanny Church, in London on May 11, 1930, he was educated at Hurstpierpoint College and Clare College, Cambridge. His first acting role was at the age of 11, playing Lorenzo in a school production of The Merchant of Venice.

He made his first professional appearance in a small part at the Arts Theatre, London, in 1953 and then went into regional repertory. In the early fifties he played small roles in the West End, notably in Peter Hall’s production of Ugo Betti’s Summertime (1955), in which he appeared opposite Gwen Ffrangcon Davies and Geraldine McEwan.

In 1960 Hall set up the new Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and Church joined him as a founder member. His work with the RSC was much admired by his peers and he was a firm favourite with the public. He remained with the company until 1987, playing such roles as Henry IV, King Lear, Friar Laurence, Quince, John of Gaunt and York in Richard II. In 1960 he was Duke in the Merchant of Venice, with Peter O’Toole as Shylock, and in 1965 Polonius in Hamlet, opposite Glenda Jackson’s Ophelia. He also toured internationally with the company.

Peter Hall asked him to join the National Theatre Company in 1988, where he won critical acclaim for his leading roles in Hall’s productions of Cymbeline, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale.

Church first went to the Denver Center Theatre in Colorado in 1975, when it hosted an RSC production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. When the National Endowment for Education commissioned Denver Center founder Donald Seawell to bring an RSC play to America each year, providing the stars would teach at a local college, Church went to Denver University, where he proved so popular he returned again and again and received an honorary doctorate in 1998. He appeared in dozens of roles with with DCTC, both classical and contemporary, retiring at 72 after playing Holofernes in a 2003 production of Love’s Labour’s Lost.

In 2000 he had conceived Give ‘Em a Bit of Mystery, a one-man show that traced Shakespearean actors from Richard Burbage to John Gielgud.

His televison credits included playing Squire Bancroft in the miniseries Lillie (1978), Sir Samuel Hoare in Edward and Mrs Simpson (1978), Parson Tringham in Tess (1979), and Turold in Krull (1983).

In 1982 he was appointed Director of Drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

He appeared for the last time on the Stratford stage in March 2007, in a special programme marking the close of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He died on March 25, 2008 in a London nursing home. He is survived by his second wife Mary, one son and two daughters.