Alexander Scourby
Encyclopedia
Alexander Scourby was an American
film, television, and voice actor known for his deep and resonant voice. He is particularly well-remembered in the English-speaking world for his landmark recordings of the entire King James Version of the Bible
, which have been released in numerous editions.
, and Betsy Scourby (née Patsakos), a homemaker, both of whom were immigrants from Greece
.
Raised in Brooklyn, Scourby was a member of a Boy Scout
troop and later became a cadet with the 101st National Guard Cavalry Regiment. He attended public and private schools in Brooklyn, spending summer vacations in New Jersey, upstate New York, and at a cousin's home in Massachusetts
. Dismissed from Polytechnic Prep School, he finished his secondary education at Brooklyn Manual Training High School, which he described as "an ordinary high school that had an awful lot of shop."
Scourby was a co-editor of the magazine and yearbook, and he envisioned a career in writing, though he later came to realize that writing was, for him, "absolutely the most painful thing in the world" and also that he "could never meet a deadline," whereas he found the reading aloud of plays easy and enjoyable. Encouraged by some of his teachers, he began to turn his attention to acting. He made his stage debut with the high school's dramatic society, as the juvenile in Augustin MacHugh's The Meanest Man in the World.
to study journalism. During his first semester he joined the campus drama group and played a minor role in A. A. Milne's comedy Mr. Pim Passes By. In February 1932, as he was beginning his second semester, his father died, and he left the university to help run the family's pie bakery in Brooklyn.
A month after Scourby returned to Brooklyn, he was accepted as an apprentice at Eva Le Gallienne's
Civic Repertory Theatre on 14th Street in downtown Manhattan. At the Civic Repertory he was taught dancing, speech, and make-up, and was given his first professional role, a walk-on in Liliom
. In 1933, Scourby and other Civic Repertory apprentices joined together to form the Apprentice Theatre, which presented plays at the New School for Social Research in New York City during the 1933-34 season.
Scourby's first role on Broadway was that of the player king in Leslie Howard's
production of Hamlet
, which opened at the Imperial Theatre on November 10, 1936 and went on tour after thirty-nine performances. Returning to New York—and unemployment—in the spring of 1937, Scourby was introduced to the American Foundation for the Blind's
Talking Book
program by Wesley Addy
, a member of the Hamlet cast and Scourby's roommate on the tour, who was regularly recording plays for the foundation. After a successful audition in the spring of 1937, Scourby was cast in a small part in a recording of Antony and Cleopatra
. During the following summer he was, again, the player king in a production of Hamlet in Dennis, Massachusetts
that featured Eva Le Gallienne. When he returned to audition for the American Foundation for the Blind later in the year he was told that the company of actors was "filled" but that he might record a novel if he wished. "That was the beginning of it," he recalled years later, adding, "The recordings for the blind are perhaps my greatest achievement. Most of the things I look back at in the theater were either insignificant parts in great plays or good parts in terrible plays. So it really doesn't amount to anything. Whereas I have recorded some great books. The greatest one being the Bible."
Scourby began working in radio in 1939 and by the early 1940s he was playing running parts in five of the serial melodramas, popularly known as soap operas, including Against the Storm
, in which he replaced Arnold Moss
for two years. He narrated Andre Kostelanetz' musical show for a year, using the pseudonym Alexander Scott. At the request of sponsors, his voice was heard on many dramatic shows, including NBC's Sunday program The Eternal Light
(with which he was to remain, despite heavy commitments elsewhere, through the 1950s). On Superman
, his was the voice of the title character's father in the one program devoted to the character's origins. During World War II, Scourby's broadcasts were beamed abroad in Greek and English for the Office of War Information. At the time, a writer in Variety
(May 16, 1962) described the quality of Scourby's voice as "the kind of resonance closely associated by listeners with big time radio."
in New York on October 12, 1938 and ran for ninety-six performances, Scourby played Rosencrantz. Later in the same season he appeared with Evans in Henry IV, Part 1
as the Earl of Westmoreland. The following year, he toured with Evans in Richard II
as one of the hirelings of the king. He returned to Broadway years later in late 1946, replacing Ruth Chatterton
as the narrator in Ben Hecht's
A Flag Is Born
, a one-act, dramatic pageant produced by the American League for a Free Palestine, at the Alvin Theatre. On December 22, 1947, he opened with John Gielgud
in Rodney Ackland's
dramatization of Crime and Punishment
at the National Theatre
in New York, playing Razournikhim, friend to Gielgud's Raskolnikoff.
Scourby was one of the founders of New Stages, a drama company that went into operation in a small theater on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village
, New York City in the 1947-48 season. During its two-year existence, the company presented Garcia Lorca's
Blood Wedding, Edward Caulfield's Bruno and Sidney, two plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
, and The Victors.
In Sidney Kingsley's
Detective Story
, which opened at the Hudson Theatre on March 23, 1949 and ran for a year and eight months, Scourby played Tami Giacoppetti, the tough racketeer. Almost immediately after Detective Story closed, Scourby began rehearsing another Kingsley role on Broadway, that of Ivanoff, the old Bolshevik friend of Rubashov in Darkness at Noon
, a dramatization of Arthur Koestler's novel
. The play opened at the Alvin Theatre on January 13, 1951, with Claude Raines playing Rubashov, and ran for 163 performances. When the Theatre Guild revived George Bernard Shaw's
Saint Joan
later in the same year, with Uta Hagen
in the title role, Scourby was cast as Peter Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais. The play was presented at the Cort Theatre
from October 4, 1951 to February 2, 1952.
Scourby first appeared on screen in two films with Glenn Ford
, Affair in Trinidad
(Columbia, 1952) and The Big Heat
(Columbia
, 1953). He subsequently played a Greek officer in Korea in The Glory Brigade
(Twentieth Century-Fox, 1953) and a Biblical character in The Silver Chalice
(Warner Brothers, 1959), and he again appeared with Glenn Ford in Ransom!
(MGM, 1956). "None of the pictures I've done have been really important or very good," Scourby later said, "with the exception - and it is debatable - of Giant (Warner Brothers, 1956)." In the film version of Edna Ferber's
novel Scourby played Polo, the old Mexican ranch foreman. He later had a role in The Big Fisherman
(Buena Vista
, 1959). During these extremely busy years, Scourby, who had been living with his wife and child in an apartment near Columbia University
in New York City, bought a home in Beverly Hills, California
. Calls for Scourby to work in New York, however, soon made the Beverly Hills residence as much a commutation point as a home.
Back on the New York stage, Scourby played Rakitin in Emlyn Williams' adaptation of Turgenev's A Month in the Country
and Peter Cauchon in Siobhan McKenna's
interpretation of Saint Joan, both presented at the Off-Broadway Phoenix Theatre
in 1956. Again at the Phoenix, he played King Claudius in Hamlet in the spring of 1961, bringing to the role, as Howard Taubman
noted in the New York Times (March 17, 1961), the appropriate "fret of fear and decay."
In 1963, Scourby was given the featured role of Gorotchenko, the Communist commissar who stalks a White Russian noble couple fleeing the Revolution, in Tovarich
, a Broadway musical by Lee Pockriss and Anne Croswell, based on the comedy by Robert E. Sherwood
and Jacques Deval. The musical opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 18, 1963, with Vivien Leigh
and Jean-Pierre Aumont
as Scourby's prey. "The signal tribute to Alexander Scourby...," Norman Nadel observed in his review in the New York World-Telegram and Sun (April 2, 1963), "was the hearty hissing opening night as he strolled on stage. In polished villainy, he has no peer." Shortly after Tovarich closed, on November 9, 1963, after 264 performances, Scourby began rehearsals in Los Angeles for a Theatre Group presentation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull
, in which he starred with Jeannette Nolan for forty performances, beginning on January 10, 1964.
In the early 1950s, Scourby worked in television as both a narrator and actor. One of his continuing assignments was as narrator for the NBC-TV's Project 20 show. He narrated a ninety-minute condensation of the television series, Victory at Sea
, for Project 20 in 1954. His assignments for the program included Three, Two, One, Zero, about the atomic bomb, and three religious documentaries using great paintings to tell the Bible story: The Coming of Christ (at Christmas); He Is Risen (at Easter); and The Law and Prophets of the Old Testament.
As a television actor, Scourby had roles on Playhouse 90
, Circle Theatre
, and Studio One
. He refused to tie himself down to a series, because, as he has explained, "it's hard to do good things that way." He took occasional parts in Daniel Boone
, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
, The Defenders, and other set-format dramatic shows. Most of the filmed shows were produced in California. In 1972, he joined his wife, Lori March, on The Secret Storm
, where they played husband and wife, Ian and Valerie Northcott, until the show's cancellation in 1974.
Partly to give himself more time on the East Coast, after 1960, he lent his voice to certain television commercials, notably those of Eastern Airlines, and was the voice of choice of numerous advertisers for their commercials. Scourby became one of the highest paid voice-over talents of his day. When advertisers couldn’t get Scourby, they would instruct their agents to get them "a Scourby voice." He narrated numerous TV documentaries, including the CBS TV series The Body Human
.
and New Testament
of the King James Version for the American Foundation for the Blind
and it took over four years to complete, finishing in 1953. Their original goal was to produce a clean, clear recording for visually impaired listeners. The American Bible Society distributed the recordings as The Talking Bible, a set of 169 records with a running time of 84.5 hours.
With the advent of cassette tape technology in the 1970s, a number of companies began selling copies of the 1950 Scourby recordings without permission, assuming that they were in public domain
. In the 1980s, a Florida company, called Neva Products, sought to sell those recordings via TV direct-response advertisements. Prior to doing that, however, Neva commissioned a law firm to research whether or not the recordings were in public domain. The legal opinion came back that they WERE NOT in public domain and that certain rights were associated with the recordings that could be protected. Based upon this legal opinion, Neva Products negotiated a non-exclusive license agreement with Alexander Scourby by agreeing to pay a royalty on all sales.
The TV promotion went very well. However, some companies continued selling the recordings without authorization, even though they were contacted by Neva telling them they were not in the public domain and to cease and desist. Neva Products then negotiated an exclusive license agreement with Alexander Scourby in 1984 whereupon Neva commenced law suits against numerous companies to stop them from selling the recordings without proper authorization. Neva was successful in this effort.
One of the biggest organizations to be sued was The Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) from Colorado Springs, Colorado
. They were sued because they permitted companies to illegally sell the Scourby recordings at the annual CBA convention—even after being notified that those companies not authorized to do so. Neva prevailed in that lawsuit. CBA had to pay substantial money damages for their infraction.
Scourby produced another recording of the King James Bible for The Episcopal Radio and TV Foundation (ERTF) in 1972 with the representation that they would only be used in the Episcopal Community and for non-profit purposes. When this recording began to be commercially exploited out in the general market as Alexander Scourby's latest narration, in 1986, Neva Products and the estate of Alexander Scourby sued The Episcopal Radio and TV Foundation from Atlanta, Georgia and Christian Duplication Inc (CDI)from Orlando, Florida. CDI improperly purchased the recordings for commercial exploitation and refused to stop selling them after being notified by both Neva and the Estate of Alexander Scourby. At a 1989 Federal Jury Trial, the jury found both ERTF and CDI had breached their contract with Alexander Scourby. The jury awarded substantial damages to Neva Products and the Estate of Alexander Scourby and also awarded the rights to the 1970s recordings to Neva Products and the Estate of Alexander Scourby. The verdict forced ERFT, which was not officially part of the Episcopal Church, into bankruptcy.
It took Neva Products approximately 5 years to stop all of the unauthorized selling of the Scourby recordings, but finally, in 1990 they were successful. In 1990, Neva Products sold their rights in the recordings to Litchfield Associates and in 1991 Litchfield Associates bought all rights, titles, and interests—including the copyrights from the estate of Alexander Scourby. The copyrights have a date of 1991. Litchfield continues to this day to market the Scourby recordings worldwide through various license agreements and online. Scourby's recordings of the Holy Bible are still among the most popular religious recordings available today.
, Gunga Din
, The Highwayman
, and Annabel Lee
, and commentary written by Louis Untermeyer
.
.
Scourby died of a heart attack on February 22, 1985 in Newtown, Connecticut at the age of 71.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film, television, and voice actor known for his deep and resonant voice. He is particularly well-remembered in the English-speaking world for his landmark recordings of the entire King James Version of the Bible
King James Version of the Bible
The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
, which have been released in numerous editions.
Early life
Alexander Scourby was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 13, 1913, to Constantine Nicholas, a successful restaurateur, wholesale baker and sometime investor in independent motion-picturesFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, and Betsy Scourby (née Patsakos), a homemaker, both of whom were immigrants from Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
Raised in Brooklyn, Scourby was a member of a Boy Scout
Boy Scout
A Scout is a boy or a girl, usually 11 to 18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split this age group into a junior and a senior section...
troop and later became a cadet with the 101st National Guard Cavalry Regiment. He attended public and private schools in Brooklyn, spending summer vacations in New Jersey, upstate New York, and at a cousin's home in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Dismissed from Polytechnic Prep School, he finished his secondary education at Brooklyn Manual Training High School, which he described as "an ordinary high school that had an awful lot of shop."
Scourby was a co-editor of the magazine and yearbook, and he envisioned a career in writing, though he later came to realize that writing was, for him, "absolutely the most painful thing in the world" and also that he "could never meet a deadline," whereas he found the reading aloud of plays easy and enjoyable. Encouraged by some of his teachers, he began to turn his attention to acting. He made his stage debut with the high school's dramatic society, as the juvenile in Augustin MacHugh's The Meanest Man in the World.
Early career
Upon graduation from high school in 1931, Scourby, not yet having abandoned the prospect of a writing career, entered West Virginia University at MorgantownWest Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...
to study journalism. During his first semester he joined the campus drama group and played a minor role in A. A. Milne's comedy Mr. Pim Passes By. In February 1932, as he was beginning his second semester, his father died, and he left the university to help run the family's pie bakery in Brooklyn.
A month after Scourby returned to Brooklyn, he was accepted as an apprentice at Eva Le Gallienne's
Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
Civic Repertory Theatre on 14th Street in downtown Manhattan. At the Civic Repertory he was taught dancing, speech, and make-up, and was given his first professional role, a walk-on in Liliom
Liliom
Liliom is a 1909 play by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. It was very famous in its own right during the early to mid-20th century, but is best known today as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.- Plot :...
. In 1933, Scourby and other Civic Repertory apprentices joined together to form the Apprentice Theatre, which presented plays at the New School for Social Research in New York City during the 1933-34 season.
Scourby's first role on Broadway was that of the player king in Leslie Howard's
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
production of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, which opened at the Imperial Theatre on November 10, 1936 and went on tour after thirty-nine performances. Returning to New York—and unemployment—in the spring of 1937, Scourby was introduced to the American Foundation for the Blind's
American Foundation for the Blind
The American Foundation for the Blind is an American non-profit organization that expands possibilities for people with vision loss. AFB's priorities include broadening access to technology; elevating the quality of information and tools for the professionals who serve people with vision loss; and...
Talking Book
Talking Book
Talking Book is the fifteenth album by Stevie Wonder, released on October 28, 1972. A signal recording of his "classic period", in this one he "hit his stride"...
program by Wesley Addy
Wesley Addy
Wesley Addy was an American actor.He played many roles on the Broadway stage, including several Shakespearean ones, usually opposite actor Maurice Evans...
, a member of the Hamlet cast and Scourby's roommate on the tour, who was regularly recording plays for the foundation. After a successful audition in the spring of 1937, Scourby was cast in a small part in a recording of Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
. During the following summer he was, again, the player king in a production of Hamlet in Dennis, Massachusetts
Dennis, Massachusetts
Dennis is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States; located near the center of Cape Cod. The population was 14,207 at the 2010 census.The town encompasses five distinct villages, each of which has its own post office...
that featured Eva Le Gallienne. When he returned to audition for the American Foundation for the Blind later in the year he was told that the company of actors was "filled" but that he might record a novel if he wished. "That was the beginning of it," he recalled years later, adding, "The recordings for the blind are perhaps my greatest achievement. Most of the things I look back at in the theater were either insignificant parts in great plays or good parts in terrible plays. So it really doesn't amount to anything. Whereas I have recorded some great books. The greatest one being the Bible."
Scourby began working in radio in 1939 and by the early 1940s he was playing running parts in five of the serial melodramas, popularly known as soap operas, including Against the Storm
Against the Storm
Against the Storm is a radio daytime drama which had three separate runs over a 13-year period; the initial run was on the NBC Red Network from October 1939 to December 1942, with revivals of the series on the Mutual from August to October 1949 and ABC from October 1951 to June 1952...
, in which he replaced Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss was an American character actor.His son is songwriter Jeff Moss....
for two years. He narrated Andre Kostelanetz' musical show for a year, using the pseudonym Alexander Scott. At the request of sponsors, his voice was heard on many dramatic shows, including NBC's Sunday program The Eternal Light
The Eternal Light
The Eternal Light is a long-running American radio and television program on the NBC Radio Network, produced in conjunction with the Jewish Theological Seminary, that was broadcast between 1944 and 1989. Featuring interviews, commentary, and award-winning dramas from the perspective of Judaism, it...
(with which he was to remain, despite heavy commitments elsewhere, through the 1950s). On Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, his was the voice of the title character's father in the one program devoted to the character's origins. During World War II, Scourby's broadcasts were beamed abroad in Greek and English for the Office of War Information. At the time, a writer in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
(May 16, 1962) described the quality of Scourby's voice as "the kind of resonance closely associated by listeners with big time radio."
Theater and Film Work
Scourby kept his hand in the theater by doing summer stock and a wide variety of other seasonal productions. In Maurice Evans' production of Hamlet, which opened at the St. James TheatreSt. James Theatre
The St. James Theatre is located at 246 W. 44th St. Broadway, New York City, New York. It was built by Abraham L. Erlanger, theatrical producer and a founding member of the Theatrical Syndicate, on the site of the original Sardi's restaurant. It opened in 1927 as The Erlanger...
in New York on October 12, 1938 and ran for ninety-six performances, Scourby played Rosencrantz. Later in the same season he appeared with Evans in Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...
as the Earl of Westmoreland. The following year, he toured with Evans in Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
as one of the hirelings of the king. He returned to Broadway years later in late 1946, replacing Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton was an American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix.- Early life :Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton...
as the narrator in Ben Hecht's
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
A Flag Is Born
A Flag is Born
A Flag Is Born was a play promoting the creation of a Jewish State in the ancient land of Israel. It opened on Broadway on September 4, 1946. The cast included Paul Muni, Celia Adler and Marlon Brando. Hollywood’s most successful screenwriter, Ben Hecht, was the playwright; it was directed by...
, a one-act, dramatic pageant produced by the American League for a Free Palestine, at the Alvin Theatre. On December 22, 1947, he opened with John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
in Rodney Ackland's
Rodney Ackland
Rodney Ackland was an English playwright, actor, theatre director and screenwriter.He was educated at Balham Grammar School in London...
dramatization of Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
at the National Theatre
National Theatre
National Theatre may refer to: -in Africa:*Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi, Kenya*National Theatre in Accra, Ghana-in Asia:*National Theater and Concert Hall, Republic of China in Taipei, Taiwan*National Theatre of Japan in Tokyo, Japan...
in New York, playing Razournikhim, friend to Gielgud's Raskolnikoff.
Scourby was one of the founders of New Stages, a drama company that went into operation in a small theater on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, New York City in the 1947-48 season. During its two-year existence, the company presented Garcia Lorca's
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
Blood Wedding, Edward Caulfield's Bruno and Sidney, two plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, and The Victors.
In Sidney Kingsley's
Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...
Detective Story
Detective Story (play)
Detective Story is a 1949 play in three acts by American playwright Sidney Kingsley. The play opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre on March 23, 1949 where it played until the production moved to the Broadhurst Theatre on July 3, 1950. The production closed on August 12, 1950 after 581 ...
, which opened at the Hudson Theatre on March 23, 1949 and ran for a year and eight months, Scourby played Tami Giacoppetti, the tough racketeer. Almost immediately after Detective Story closed, Scourby began rehearsing another Kingsley role on Broadway, that of Ivanoff, the old Bolshevik friend of Rubashov in Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940...
, a dramatization of Arthur Koestler's novel
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
. The play opened at the Alvin Theatre on January 13, 1951, with Claude Raines playing Rubashov, and ran for 163 performances. When the Theatre Guild revived George Bernard Shaw's
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
Saint Joan
Saint Joan (play)
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
later in the same year, with Uta Hagen
Uta Hagen
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...
in the title role, Scourby was cast as Peter Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais. The play was presented at the Cort Theatre
Cort Theatre
The Cort Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 138 West 48th Street in the Theatre District of midtown Manhattan in New York City...
from October 4, 1951 to February 2, 1952.
Scourby first appeared on screen in two films with Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, Affair in Trinidad
Affair in Trinidad
Affair in Trinidad is a film produced by Hayworth's Beckworth Corporation, released by Columbia Pictures, and starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. It is notable as Hayworth's "comeback" film after four years away from Columbia, as a re-teaming of the Gilda co-stars, and for a fiery opening...
(Columbia, 1952) and The Big Heat
The Big Heat
The Big Heat is a 1953 film noir directed by Fritz Lang, starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin. It is about a cop who takes on the crime syndicate that controls his city after the brutal murder of his beloved wife. The film was written by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm based on a...
(Columbia
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, 1953). He subsequently played a Greek officer in Korea in The Glory Brigade
The Glory Brigade
The Glory Brigade is a 1953 film directed by Robert D. Webb. It stars Victor Mature and Alexander Scourby. It won a Golden Globe in 1954.The film was shot at the US Army Engineer training post Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.-Plot:...
(Twentieth Century-Fox, 1953) and a Biblical character in The Silver Chalice
The Silver Chalice
The Silver Chalice is a 1952 English language historical novel by Thomas B. Costain. It is the fictional story of the making of a silver chalice to hold the Holy Grail and includes 1st century biblical and historical figures: Luke, Joseph of Arimathea, Simon Magus and his companion Helena, and the...
(Warner Brothers, 1959), and he again appeared with Glenn Ford in Ransom!
Ransom!
Ransom! is a 1956 crime drama examining the reactions of parents, police, and the public to a kidnapping. Written by Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume, the film was based on a popular episode of "The United States Steel Hour" titled "Fearful Decision," which aired in 1954...
(MGM, 1956). "None of the pictures I've done have been really important or very good," Scourby later said, "with the exception - and it is debatable - of Giant (Warner Brothers, 1956)." In the film version of Edna Ferber's
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
novel Scourby played Polo, the old Mexican ranch foreman. He later had a role in The Big Fisherman
The Big Fisherman
The Big Fisherman is a 1959 American film directed by Frank Borzage about the later life of Peter, one of the closest disciples of Jesus.The film is adapted from a novel written by Lloyd C. Douglas...
(Buena Vista
Buena Vista Distribution
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is a motion picture and television feature distribution company owned by Disney Enterprises, Inc. Buena Vista International was the international distribution arm, Buena Vista Home Entertainment was the firm's video and DVD distribution arm, and Buena Vista...
, 1959). During these extremely busy years, Scourby, who had been living with his wife and child in an apartment near Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City, bought a home in Beverly Hills, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Calls for Scourby to work in New York, however, soon made the Beverly Hills residence as much a commutation point as a home.
Back on the New York stage, Scourby played Rakitin in Emlyn Williams' adaptation of Turgenev's A Month in the Country
A Month in the Country (play)
A Month in the Country is a comedy in five acts by Ivan Turgenev. It was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and was first published in 1855...
and Peter Cauchon in Siobhan McKenna's
Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna was an Irish stage and screen actress.-Background:Born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family, she grew up in Galway City and in County Monaghan, Ireland speaking fluent Irish...
interpretation of Saint Joan, both presented at the Off-Broadway Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix Theatre may refer to:*Phoenix Arts Centre, former name was Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, UK*Phoenix Theatre , a West End theatre*Phoenix Theatre , a professional alternative theatre*Phoenix Theatre , a regional theatre...
in 1956. Again at the Phoenix, he played King Claudius in Hamlet in the spring of 1961, bringing to the role, as Howard Taubman
Howard Taubman
Hyman Howard Taubman was an American music critic, theater critic, and author.-Biography:Born in Manhattan, Taubman attended DeWitt Clinton High School and then won a four-year scholarship to Cornell University, from which he graduated, as a Phi Beta Kappa member, in 1929.He then returned to New...
noted in the New York Times (March 17, 1961), the appropriate "fret of fear and decay."
In 1963, Scourby was given the featured role of Gorotchenko, the Communist commissar who stalks a White Russian noble couple fleeing the Revolution, in Tovarich
Tovarich (musical)
Tovarich is a 1963 musical play in two acts with book by David Shaw; music by Lee Pockriss and lyrics by Anne Croswell; based on the comedy by Jacques Deval and Robert E...
, a Broadway musical by Lee Pockriss and Anne Croswell, based on the comedy by Robert E. Sherwood
Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood...
and Jacques Deval. The musical opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 18, 1963, with Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
and Jean-Pierre Aumont
Jean-Pierre Aumont
-Early life:Aumont was born Jean-Pierre Philippe Salomons in Paris, the son of Suzanne and Alexandre Salomons, owner of La Maison du Blanc . His mother's uncle was well-known stage actor Georges Berr. His father was from a Dutch Jewish family and his mother's family were French Jews...
as Scourby's prey. "The signal tribute to Alexander Scourby...," Norman Nadel observed in his review in the New York World-Telegram and Sun (April 2, 1963), "was the hearty hissing opening night as he strolled on stage. In polished villainy, he has no peer." Shortly after Tovarich closed, on November 9, 1963, after 264 performances, Scourby began rehearsals in Los Angeles for a Theatre Group presentation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull
The Sea Gull
The Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American-Greek drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull....
, in which he starred with Jeannette Nolan for forty performances, beginning on January 10, 1964.
In the early 1950s, Scourby worked in television as both a narrator and actor. One of his continuing assignments was as narrator for the NBC-TV's Project 20 show. He narrated a ninety-minute condensation of the television series, Victory at Sea
Victory at Sea
Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about naval warfare during World War II that was originally broadcast by NBC in the USA in 1952–1953. It was condensed into a film in 1954. The music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, was re-recorded and sold as record albums...
, for Project 20 in 1954. His assignments for the program included Three, Two, One, Zero, about the atomic bomb, and three religious documentaries using great paintings to tell the Bible story: The Coming of Christ (at Christmas); He Is Risen (at Easter); and The Law and Prophets of the Old Testament.
As a television actor, Scourby had roles on Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
, Circle Theatre
Armstrong Circle Theatre
Armstrong Circle Theatre is an American anthology drama television series which ran from 1950 to 1957 on NBC, and then until 1963 on CBS. It alternated weekly with The U.S. Steel Hour.-Synopsis:...
, and Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
. He refused to tie himself down to a series, because, as he has explained, "it's hard to do good things that way." He took occasional parts in Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (TV series)
Daniel Boone is an American action/adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Native American friend, for the...
, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement...
, The Defenders, and other set-format dramatic shows. Most of the filmed shows were produced in California. In 1972, he joined his wife, Lori March, on The Secret Storm
The Secret Storm
The Secret Storm is a soap opera which ran on CBS from February 1, 1954 to February 8, 1974. The series was created by Roy Winsor, who also created the long-running soap operas Search for Tomorrow and Love of Life...
, where they played husband and wife, Ian and Valerie Northcott, until the show's cancellation in 1974.
Partly to give himself more time on the East Coast, after 1960, he lent his voice to certain television commercials, notably those of Eastern Airlines, and was the voice of choice of numerous advertisers for their commercials. Scourby became one of the highest paid voice-over talents of his day. When advertisers couldn’t get Scourby, they would instruct their agents to get them "a Scourby voice." He narrated numerous TV documentaries, including the CBS TV series The Body Human
The Body Human
The Body Human was a series of specials produced by the National Geographic Society and telecast by CBS, between 1977 and 1984. . They were produced and directed by Alfred R. Kelman, who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1966 for The Face of a Genius...
.
King James recordings
Scourby was the first person to record the King James Bible on long play records in the 1950s. He originally narrated the OldOld Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
of the King James Version for the American Foundation for the Blind
American Foundation for the Blind
The American Foundation for the Blind is an American non-profit organization that expands possibilities for people with vision loss. AFB's priorities include broadening access to technology; elevating the quality of information and tools for the professionals who serve people with vision loss; and...
and it took over four years to complete, finishing in 1953. Their original goal was to produce a clean, clear recording for visually impaired listeners. The American Bible Society distributed the recordings as The Talking Bible, a set of 169 records with a running time of 84.5 hours.
With the advent of cassette tape technology in the 1970s, a number of companies began selling copies of the 1950 Scourby recordings without permission, assuming that they were in public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. In the 1980s, a Florida company, called Neva Products, sought to sell those recordings via TV direct-response advertisements. Prior to doing that, however, Neva commissioned a law firm to research whether or not the recordings were in public domain. The legal opinion came back that they WERE NOT in public domain and that certain rights were associated with the recordings that could be protected. Based upon this legal opinion, Neva Products negotiated a non-exclusive license agreement with Alexander Scourby by agreeing to pay a royalty on all sales.
The TV promotion went very well. However, some companies continued selling the recordings without authorization, even though they were contacted by Neva telling them they were not in the public domain and to cease and desist. Neva Products then negotiated an exclusive license agreement with Alexander Scourby in 1984 whereupon Neva commenced law suits against numerous companies to stop them from selling the recordings without proper authorization. Neva was successful in this effort.
One of the biggest organizations to be sued was The Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...
. They were sued because they permitted companies to illegally sell the Scourby recordings at the annual CBA convention—even after being notified that those companies not authorized to do so. Neva prevailed in that lawsuit. CBA had to pay substantial money damages for their infraction.
Scourby produced another recording of the King James Bible for The Episcopal Radio and TV Foundation (ERTF) in 1972 with the representation that they would only be used in the Episcopal Community and for non-profit purposes. When this recording began to be commercially exploited out in the general market as Alexander Scourby's latest narration, in 1986, Neva Products and the estate of Alexander Scourby sued The Episcopal Radio and TV Foundation from Atlanta, Georgia and Christian Duplication Inc (CDI)from Orlando, Florida. CDI improperly purchased the recordings for commercial exploitation and refused to stop selling them after being notified by both Neva and the Estate of Alexander Scourby. At a 1989 Federal Jury Trial, the jury found both ERTF and CDI had breached their contract with Alexander Scourby. The jury awarded substantial damages to Neva Products and the Estate of Alexander Scourby and also awarded the rights to the 1970s recordings to Neva Products and the Estate of Alexander Scourby. The verdict forced ERFT, which was not officially part of the Episcopal Church, into bankruptcy.
It took Neva Products approximately 5 years to stop all of the unauthorized selling of the Scourby recordings, but finally, in 1990 they were successful. In 1990, Neva Products sold their rights in the recordings to Litchfield Associates and in 1991 Litchfield Associates bought all rights, titles, and interests—including the copyrights from the estate of Alexander Scourby. The copyrights have a date of 1991. Litchfield continues to this day to market the Scourby recordings worldwide through various license agreements and online. Scourby's recordings of the Holy Bible are still among the most popular religious recordings available today.
Poetry recordings
Scourby also made recordings of British and American poetry. One of his most notable was the LP A Golden Treasury of Poetry, recorded for the children's label Golden Records. It featured readings of such poems as Paul Revere's RidePaul Revere's Ride (poem)
"Paul Revere's Ride" is a poem by an American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775.-Overview:...
, Gunga Din
Gunga Din
-Background:The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. The last line suggests a deep-down unease of conscience about the prevailing views of natural hierarchies, both in the depicted...
, The Highwayman
The Highwayman (poem)
"The Highwayman" is a narrative poem written by Alfred Noyes, first published in the August 1906 issue of Blackwood's Magazine. The following year it was included in Noyes' collection, Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems, becoming an immediate success....
, and Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
"Annabel Lee" is the last complete poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe. Like many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are jealous. He...
, and commentary written by Louis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.-Life and career:...
.
Personal life
Scourby and Lori von Eltz were married on May 12, 1943. Von Eltz was the daughter of motion-picture actor Theodor von Eltz, and was well-known as an actress on television, Broadway and in film working under the pseudonym Lori March. The couple had a daughter, Alexandra, born on March 27, 1944. Scourby had no political affiliation nor any specific religious affiliations, though he was baptized in the Greek Orthodox tradition and his marriage to von Eltz occurred in an Episcopalian chapelEpiscopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
.
Scourby died of a heart attack on February 22, 1985 in Newtown, Connecticut at the age of 71.