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Robert Atkins (actor)

English actor (1886–1972)

Summary

English actor (1886–1972)

Field	Value
name	Robert Atkins
honorific_suffix
image	Actor_Robert_Atkins.jpg
caption	"Old Vic" Shakespeare Co. photo
birth_name	Robert Alexander Atkins Jr.
birth_date
birth_place	Dulwich, London, England, UK
death_date
death_place	London, England, UK
occupation	Actor, producer, director
spouse	Mary Sumner
Ethel Davey

Ethel Davey

Robert Alexander Atkins Jr. (10 August 1886 – 9 February 1972) was an English actor, producer and director.

Biography

Robert Alexander Atkins Jr. was born in Dulwich, London, England, to Annie Evans and Robert Atkins Sr. He had a brother, Lawrence. Atkins was most famous for his association with the theatre. An early graduate of Beerbohm Tree's Academy of Dramatic Art, he joined the Old Vic company in 1915, and became Director of Productions for Lilian Baylis from 1921 to 1926. He also appeared many times on film and in television, although not with the success of his theatre career.

His first film was a 1913 production of Hamlet, as the First Player, with Johnston Forbes-Robertson in the title role. Atkins went on to appear in several other film and television roles over the next 50 years with the most famous production possibly being A Matter of Life and Death. He also produced and/or directed several adaptations of William Shakespeare plays during the 1940s and 1950s for British TV. He was director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, and along with Sydney Carroll, also founded Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

Personal life and death

Robert Atkins was married twice: to Mary Sumner whom he divorced, and to Ethel Davey, a film editor. He died in London, England in 1972.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1935	Peg of Old Drury	Dr. Samuel Johnson
1936	The Cardinal	General Belmont
Everything Is Thunder	Adjutant
1937	Victoria the Great	Garter King-at-Arms
1941	He Found a Star	Frank Forrester
1942	Let the People Sing	Hassock
The Great Mr. Handel
1946	A Matter of Life and Death	The Vicar
1949	That Dangerous Age	George Drummond
Black Magic	King Louis XV
1951	I'll Never Forget You	Dr. Samuel Johnson	Uncredited

References

(2004). "Atkins, (Alexander) Robert (1886–1972), actor and theatre director".
(1972-02-11). "ROBERT ATKINS, 85, ACTOR AND DIRECTOR". The New York Times.
Pigott-Smith, Tim. (1 June 2017). "Do You Know Who I Am?: A Memoir". Bloomsbury Publishing.
"BFI Screenonline: Hamlet (1913) Credits". BFI Screenonline.
"Robert Atkins".
(3 April 2014). "Scenes from Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor (BBC, 1937)".
"BFI Screenonline: The Tempest on Screen". BFI Screenonline.
"STR Publications: Robert Atkins – An Unfinished Autobiography".
"Touchstone : Online Exhibition".
"Robert Atkins – Our Heritage – Open Air Theatre".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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