Cyril Ritchard
Encyclopedia
Cyril Ritchard was an Australian stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

, screen
Film
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 television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...

 musical production of Peter Pan
Peter Pan (1954 musical)
Peter Pan is a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and Barrie's own novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty...

.

Life and career

He was born Cyril Trimnell-Ritchard in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia, to Sydney-born parents, Herbert Trimnell-Ritchard, a Protestant grocer, and his wife Marguerite, a devout Roman Catholic who ensured her son was raised as a Roman Catholic. Educated by the Jesuits at St Aloysius' College, Cyril was a life-long devout Catholic who attended Sunday Mass wherever he happened to be.

Early in his career, Ritchard played in numerous musical comedies
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

, including Yes, Uncle!
Yes, Uncle!
Yes, Uncle! is a musical comedy by Austen Hurgen and George Arthurs, with music by Nat D. Ayer and lyrics by Clifford Grey...

and Going Up
Going Up (musical)
Going Up is a musical comedy in three acts with music by Louis Hirsch and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and James Montgomery. Set in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States at the end of World War I, the musical tells the story of a writer turned aviator who wins the hand of the high society girl...

, both in 1918 with actress Madge Elliott (who later became his wife).

He achieved star status in 1954 as Captain Hook
Captain Hook
Captain James Hook is the main antagonist of J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up and its various adaptations. The character is a villainous pirate captain of the Jolly Roger brig, and lord of the pirate village/harbour in Neverland, where he is widely feared. Most...

 in the Broadway production of Peter Pan
Peter Pan (1954 musical)
Peter Pan is a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and Barrie's own novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty...

co-starring Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...

, with whom he shared the same birthday (1 December). For his work in the show, Ritchard received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

. Both Ritchard and Martin reprised their roles in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 television productions of the musical, beginning with a live color telecast in 1955. He also appeared onstage in The Happiest Girl in the World
The Happiest Girl in the World
The Happiest Girl in the World is a musical with a book by Fred Saidy and Henry Mayers, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, and music taken from the works of Jacques Offenbach....

, Sugar
Sugar (musical)
Sugar is a musical with a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. It is based on the film Some Like It Hot, which was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan...

, The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd (with Anthony Newley
Anthony Newley
Anthony George Newley was an English actor, singer and songwriter. He enjoyed success as a performer in such diverse fields as rock and roll and stage and screen acting.-Early life:...

), Roar Like a Dove, and The Irregular Verb to Love.

His film appearances include a villainous role in Alfred Hitchcock's early talkie Blackmail
Blackmail (1929 film)
Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard, and featuring Donald Calthrop, Sara Allgood and Charles Paton. The film is based on the play Blackmail by Charles Bennett, as adapted by Hitchcock, with dialogue by...

(1929) and much later in the Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele OBE , is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.-Singer:...

 vehicle Half a Sixpence
Half a Sixpence (film)
Half a Sixpence is a 1967 British musical film directed by George Sidney and choreographed by Gillian Lynne. The screenplay by Beverley Cross is adapted from his book for the stage musical of the same name, which was based on Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, a 1905 novel by H.G. Wells...

(1967).

Ritchard also appeared regularly on a variety of television programs in the late 1950s and 1960s. For example, he did a stint as one the What's My Line? mystery guests
What's My Line? Mystery Guests
The following is an alphabetized list of persons who were Mystery Guests on one version of the United States version of the television game show What's My Line?.-A:*Edie Adams...

 on the 22 December 1957, episode of the popular Sunday night CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

-TV program. Later Ritchard served as a guest panelist on that quiz show, where he was, perhaps comically, referred to as 'Sir Cyril'. However, Ritchard was never knighted.

A memorable television out-take features Ritchard saying 'Goodnight' to an audience, before spinning a ball on a roulette wheel. Ritchard watches as the ball rattles around the wheel, seemingly interminably, before it finally bounces off the wheel, hits the spindle and flies off-screen.

Shortly before he died, Ritchard performed as the voice of Elrond
Elrond
Elrond Half-elven is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is introduced in The Hobbit, and plays a supporting role in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.-Character overview:...

 in the Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. , also known as Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment, was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop-motion animation. The pre-1974 library is currently owned by Classic Media,while the post-1974 library is...

 television production of The Hobbit. He suffered a heart attack on 25 November 1977, aged 79, while appearing as the narrator in the Chicago touring company of Side by Side by Sondheim. He died a month later in Chicago, aged 80, and was buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 24,638 at the 2010 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, is defined by the U.S...

, where he had long resided in his rural home. His funeral Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He survived his wife, Madge, who died in 1955, and a baby boy who died in infancy in 1939.

Selected filmography

  • Just for a Song
    Just for a Song
    Just for a Song is a 1930 British musical film directed by Gareth Gundrey and starring Lillian Hall-Davis, Roy Royston and Constance Carpenter.-Main cast:* Lillian Hall-Davis - Norma Wentworth* Roy Royston - Jack* Constance Carpenter - Jill...

    (1930)
  • Danny Boy
    Danny Boy (1934 film)
    Danny Boy is a 1934 British musical film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Frank Forbes-Robinson, Dorothy Dickson, Archie Pitt and Ronnie Hepworth...

    (1934)
  • Dangerous Medicine
    Dangerous Medicine
    Dangerous Medicine is a 1938 British crime film, directed by Arthur B. Woods and starring Elizabeth Allan and Cyril Ritchard. It is now classed as a lost film.-Plot:...

    (1938)
  • I See Ice
    I See Ice
    I See Ice is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Anthony Kimmins and starring George Formby, Kay Walsh and Betty Stockfeld. The film depicts the adventures of a photographer working for a local newspaper.-Cast:* George Formby ... George Bright...

    (1938)
  • The Winslow Boy
    The Winslow Boy (1948 film)
    The Winslow Boy is a 1948 film adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy. It was made by De Grunwald Productions and distributed by the British Lion Film Corporation. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and produced by Anatole de Grunwald with Teddy Baird as associate producer. The...

    (1948)
  • The Daydreamer
    The Daydreamer
    The Daydreamer is a 1966 Rankin/Bass stop-motion puppet animation and live-action musical fantasy film. Directed by Jules Bass, it was written by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Romeo Muller, based on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. It features songs by Jules Bass and Maury Laws.-Plot:Teen-aged Hans...

    (1966)

External links

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