Donald wolfit cause of death

Rosalind iden
Barbara shelley
Chris castor

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A Biographical Sketch of Donald Wolfit

Family History and Early Life

Donald Woolfitt was born in New Balderton, Newark, Nottinghamshire, on April 20th 1902. He changed his name to the shorter, sharper "Wolfit" after he began his stage career. He was the fourth child of Emma (left) and William (below) Woolfitt both of whom came from long established local families, stretching back to John Wolfet, 1571 and William Wolfett, 1583, both of Laxton, Notts.

Emma Woolfitt was a strong influence on her son's life. The granddaughter of William Tomlinson, founder of the Newark Advertiser, she had inherited her own father's gift of reading aloud, and encouraged her small son's talent for recitation.

He saw his elder brother, Philip perform in The Pied Piper of Hamlin at Newark's Magnus Grammar School. He was ten at the time but the spark to act was kindled and he thought of little else. His enthusiasm led him into local amateur dramatics, and at the age of fifteen he gave his first public performance at the Robin Hood Theatre in Averham, Notts, a

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This is the final Post for the Month of February 2019 – and we have saved this one , which I think (and hope) is rather special as it concernes one of our greatest stage actors of the last century – namely Sir Donald Wolfit.

The last of the actor-managers taking Shakespeare on tour: Donald Wolfit

I have just listened to a half hour programme from Radio 4 in the Great Lives series on Donald Wolfit. Ned Sherrin presented it who had worked in his Theatre Touring Comany as had Ronald Harwood who also contributed and had been Sir Donald’s Dresser for 7 years – so knew him well.

Ned Sherrin described him as a Stage Actor who he regarded as one of the Greatest Actors of the Twentieth Century – certainly the equal if not better than Olivier and Geilgud. Donald was not liked by these two or Ralph Richardson who Ned stated was jealous of Donald’s ability to play the great Shakespearean roles which he could not do.

Donald Wolfit took Shakespeare to the people and toured extensively in Britain and overseas. More below about his dramati

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Scope and Contents

The Donald Wolfit Papers consist largely of performance-related materials, supplemented by correspondence, literary works, and personal papers. Although the primary focus of the papers is on Wolfit's career as an actor-manager, there is a significant amount of material concerning some of the theatrical issues of the day upon which Wolfit, as a leader in his profession, felt compelled to comment. The papers are arranged in five series: I. Theater Papers, 1921-1984 (35 boxes), II. Correspondence, 1928-1984 (4 boxes), III. Works, 1922-1964 (1 box), IV. Miscellaneous, 1803-1983 (2 boxes), and V. Works by Other Authors, 1937-1972 (2 boxes). Within each series, materials are arranged alphabetically by title or subject.The papers arrived at the Ransom Center via an antiquarian bookseller after Ronald Harwood made extensive use of the papers while writing his biography of Wolfit. With the possible exception of the materials in Series I, little trace of any original order employed by Wolfit was evident. Annotations by Harwood and his assistants can be found thr