Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney (23 April 1894 – 10 January 1968) was an English stage and screen actor. Sydney made his name in 1915 in the London stage hit Romance by Edward Sheldon, with Broadway star Doris Keane, and he costarred with Keane in the 1920 silent film of the play. The couple married in 1918, and when Keane revived Romance in New York City in 1921, Sydney made his Broadway debut in the parts. He stayed in New York for over a decade playing classical roles such as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (1922), Richard Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple (1923), the title role in Hamlet (1923), Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I (1926), and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew (1927).[citation needed] In 1937 he starred in the murder mystery Blondie White in the West End.
He made over 50 screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island (1950), Ivanhoe (1952), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), but the focus of his career was the stage on both sides of the Atlantic.
Known for
No Hiding Place
Around the World in 80 Days
Reform Club Member
Drama 61-67
Mourtzinos
The Magic Box
William Fox-Talbot
Romance
Ivanhoe
Waldemar Fitzurse
Hamlet
Claudius - The King
Salome
Pontius Pilate
Treasure Island
Captain Smollett
Went the Day Well?
Major Hammond / Kommandant Orlter
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
Emperor of Lilliput
The Dam Busters
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C.
The Third Clue
Reinhardt Conway
The Devil's Disciple
Lawyer Hawkins
John Paul Jones
Sir William Young
Caesar and Cleopatra
Rufio
Silent Evidence
Mayerling
The Emperor Franz Joseph
Island in the Sun
Julian Fleury
Jassy
Nick Helmar
Sea Wife
Bulldog
The Next of Kin
Naval captain
The Tunnel
Mostyn
The Hands of Orlac
Maurice Seidelman
The Amateur Gentleman
Louis Chichester
Rhodes of Africa
Dr. Jim Jameson
Simba
Mr Crawford
A Question of Adultery
Sir John Loring
Star of India
King Louis XIV
The Man Within
Sir Henry Merriman
A Story of David
King Saul
Ships with Wings
Capt. Fairfax
Red Hot Romance
Rowland Stone
Three's Company
Dr. Graham
The Four Just Men
Frank Snell
Crime Over London
'Joker' Finnigan
Hell Below Zero
Bland
Meet Me at Dawn
Georges Vermorel
Spring Meeting
James
Talk of the Devil
The Angel with the Trumpet
Francis Alt
The Black Sheep of Whitehall
Costello
The Farmer's Wife
Samuel Sweetland
Accused
Eugene Roget
The Midshipmaid
Cmdr. Fosberry
The Riverside Murder
Inspector Philip Winton
Dirty Work
Hugh Stafford
Blind Man's Bluff
Dr. Peter Fairfax
Bits of Our Aircraft are Missing
(uncredited)