Torin Thatcher
Encyclopedia
Torin Thatcher was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actor born in Bombay, British India, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

), to English parents. He was an imposing, powerfully built figure noted for his flashy portrayals of screen villains.

He was educated in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 at Bedford School
Bedford School
Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Modern School or Bedford High School or Old Bedford School in Bedford, TexasBedford School is an HMC independent school for boys located in the town of Bedford, England, United Kingdom...

 and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

. He worked as a schoolmaster
Schoolmaster
A schoolmaster, or simply master, once referred to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British public schools, but is generally obsolete elsewhere.The teacher in charge of a school is the headmaster...

 before first appearing on the London stage
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 in 1927 and then entering British films in 1934. He appeared in the 1937 Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

 stage 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...

, in which Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

 made his first appearance in the title role, opposite 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...

 as Ophelia
Ophelia
Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and potential wife of Prince Hamlet.-Plot:...

. During the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he served with the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...

 and was demobilized with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Thatcher appeared in classic British films of the late 1930s and 1940s, including Major Barbara (1941) and Great Expectations
Great Expectations (1946 film)
Great Expectations is a 1946 British film which won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three others...

(1946), in which he played Bentley Drummle. He moved to Hollywood in the 1950s. He was constantly in demand, invariably lending his looming figure and baleful countenance to sinister or stern roles in popular costume thrillers
Costume drama
A costume drama or period drama is a period piece in which elaborate costumes, sets and properties are featured in order to capture the ambiance of a particular era.The term is usually used in the context of film and television...

 such as The Crimson Pirate
The Crimson Pirate
The Crimson Pirate is a 1952 American adventure film directed by Robert Siodmak. It stars Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced the film, as Captain Vallo, the eponymous pirate, and is set in the Caribbean late in the 18th century, on the fictional islands of Cobra and San Pero...

(1952), Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard the Pirate
Blackbeard the Pirate is a 1952 Technicolor adventure film made by RKO. The film was directed by Raoul Walsh and produced by Edmund Grainger from a screenplay by Alan Le May based on the story by DeVallon Scott.-Plot:...

(1952), The Robe
The Robe (film)
The Robe is a 1953 American Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and is notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope.It was directed by Henry Koster...

(1953) (as the disapproving father of Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

's character), The Black Shield of Falworth
The Black Shield of Falworth
The Black Shield of Falworth is a 1954 film made by Universal Studios, produced by Robert Arthur and Melville Tucker and directed by Rudolph Maté...

(1954), Helen of Troy
Helen of Troy (film)
Helen of Troy is a 1956 Warner Bros. epic film, based on Homer's Iliad. It was directed by Robert Wise, from a screenplay by Hugh Gray and John Twist, adapted by Hugh Gray and N. Richard Nash...

(1956), Darby's Rangers
Darby's Rangers (1958 film)
Darby's Rangers is a 1958 war film starring James Garner as William Orlando Darby, World War II commander of the 1st Ranger Battalion. The movie was shot by Warner Brothers Studios in black and white to match wartime stock footage included in the production and was directed by William...

(1958), and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). He also appeared in the Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

 and Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...

 1962
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....

 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...

.

He returned to the stage quite frequently, notably on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, in such esteemed productions as Edward, My Son
Edward, My Son
Edward, My Son is a 1949 American/British drama film directed by George Cukor that stars Spencer Tracy and Deborah Kerr. The screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart is based on the play by Noel Langley and Robert Morley.-Plot:...

(1948), That Lady
That Lady
That Lady is a 1955 film directed by Terence Young. It stars Olivia de Havilland, Gilbert Roland and Paul Scofield.The film is based on the 1946 historical novel by Kate O'Brien, which was published in North America under the title For One Sweet Grape. The novel was also produced as a play in 1949....

(1949) and Billy Budd
Billy Budd
Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...

(1951). In 1959, he portrayed Captain Keller in the award-winning play The Miracle Worker
The Miracle Worker (play)
The Miracle Worker is a three-act play by William Gibson adapted from his 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay of the same name. It is based on Helen Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life.-Plot:...

with Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....

 and Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...

. All of these plays were filmed, but Thatcher did not appear in the movie versions.

Also a steady fixture on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, he appeared in such made-for-TV films as adaptations of A. J. Cronin
A. J. Cronin
Archibald Joseph Cronin was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known works are Hatter's Castle, The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years, all of which were adapted to film. He also created the Dr...

's Beyond This Place
Beyond This Place (1957)
Beyond This Place is a 1957 American television adaptation from A. J. Cronin's novel, Beyond This Place, which was originally published in 1953. It is not really a film, but a live production broadcast on television, and possibly preserved on kinescope. The show was directed by Sidney Lumet and...

(1957) and The Citadel
The Citadel (1960)
The Citadel is a 1960 American television adaptation of A. J. Cronin's 1937 novel, The Citadel. It was written by Dale Wasserman and starred James Donald as Dr. Manson and Ann Blyth as Christine Barlow...

(1960), Bonanza(1961), and Brenda Starr
Brenda Starr
Brenda Starr may refer to:* Brenda Starr, Reporter, a comic strip about a female reporter* Brenda Starr, a 1989 film based on the comic strip* Brenda Starr, Reporter, a 1945 film serial based on the comic strip...

(1976). He also played the title role in a Philco Television Playhouse version of Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

and acted in a 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...

 production of Beyond This Place
Beyond This Place
Beyond This Place is a 1953 novel by Scottish author A. J. Cronin. A serial version appeared in Collier's under the title of To Live Again.-Adaptations:...

(1957). He was cast as the sly Space Trader in an episode of Lost in Space
Lost in Space
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...

(1966).

Thatcher died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 on March 4, 1981, in Thousand Oaks, California
Thousand Oaks, California
Thousand Oaks is a city in southeastern Ventura County, California, in the United States. It was named after the many oak trees that grace the area, and the city seal is adorned with an oak....

, in the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 area.

Partial filmography

  • The Man Who Could Work Miracles
    The Man Who Could Work Miracles
    The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1936 British fantasy-comedy film. It is a greatly expanded version of H.G. Wells’s story of the same name. It was the final adaptation of one of Wells' works to be produced during his lifetime.-Plot outline:...

    (1936)
  • Sabotage
    Sabotage (film)
    Sabotage, also released as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent...

    (1936) (uncredited)
  • The Spy in Black
    The Spy in Black
    The Spy in Black is a 1939 British film, and the first collaboration between the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They were brought together by Alexander Korda to make the World War I spy thriller by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film...

    (1939)
  • Major Barbara (1941)
  • The Next of Kin
    The Next of Kin
    The Next of Kin, also known as Next of Kin, is a 1942 World War II propaganda film produced by Ealing Studios.The film was originally commissioned by the British War Office as a training film to promote the government propaganda message that "Careless talk costs lives"...

    (1942)
  • Great Expectations
    Great Expectations (1946 film)
    Great Expectations is a 1946 British film which won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three others...

    (1946)
  • Jassy
    Jassy (film)
    Jassy was a 1947 British film melodrama, based on a novel by Norah Lofts. It was a Gainsborough melodrama, the only one to be made in technicolour.-Plot:...

    (1947)
  • When the Bough Breaks
    When the Bough Breaks (1947 film)
    When the Bough Breaks is a 1947 film by Gainsborough Pictures, J. Arthur Rank and Sydney Box Productions. It is an adaptation of an original story-line by Herbert Victor on adoption and the competing ties of one child's birth and foster family.-Cast:...

    (1947)
  • The Fallen Idol (1948)
  • 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...

    (1952)
  • The Snows of Kilimanjaro
    The Snows of Kilimanjaro (film)
    The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a 1952 film based on the short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film version of the short story was directed by Henry King, and starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Susan Hayward....

    (1952)
  • The Crimson Pirate
    The Crimson Pirate
    The Crimson Pirate is a 1952 American adventure film directed by Robert Siodmak. It stars Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced the film, as Captain Vallo, the eponymous pirate, and is set in the Caribbean late in the 18th century, on the fictional islands of Cobra and San Pero...

    (1952)
  • Blackbeard the Pirate
    Blackbeard the Pirate
    Blackbeard the Pirate is a 1952 Technicolor adventure film made by RKO. The film was directed by Raoul Walsh and produced by Edmund Grainger from a screenplay by Alan Le May based on the story by DeVallon Scott.-Plot:...

    (1952)
  • The Desert Rats
    The Desert Rats (film)
    The Desert Rats is a 1953 American war film about the World War II siege of Tobruk. It stars Richard Burton and was directed by Robert Wise.-Plot:...

    (1953)
  • Houdini
    Houdini (film)
    Houdini is a 1953 biographical film about the life of the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini. It was made by Paramount Pictures, directed by George Marshall and produced by George Pal from a screenplay by Philip Yordan, based on the book Houdini by Harold Kellock. The music score was by Roy...

    (1953)

  • The Robe
    The Robe (film)
    The Robe is a 1953 American Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and is notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope.It was directed by Henry Koster...

    (1953)
  • Knock on Wood (1954)
  • The Black Shield of Falworth
    The Black Shield of Falworth
    The Black Shield of Falworth is a 1954 film made by Universal Studios, produced by Robert Arthur and Melville Tucker and directed by Rudolph Maté...

    (1954)
  • Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
    Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film)
    Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing is a 1955 American drama-romance film. Set in 1949-50 Hong Kong, it tells the story of a married, but separated, American reporter , who falls in love with a Eurasian doctor originally from China , only to encounter prejudice from her family and from Hong Kong...

    (1955)
  • Diane
    Diane (film)
    Diane is a 1956 American historical film drama about the life of Diane de Poitiers, produced by MGM. It was directed by David Miller and produced by Edwin H. Knopf from a screenplay by Christopher Isherwood based on a story by John Erskine. The music score was composed by Miklós Rózsa, Robert H....

    (1956)
  • Helen of Troy
    Helen of Troy (film)
    Helen of Troy is a 1956 Warner Bros. epic film, based on Homer's Iliad. It was directed by Robert Wise, from a screenplay by Hugh Gray and John Twist, adapted by Hugh Gray and N. Richard Nash...

    (1956)
  • Band of Angels
    Band of Angels
    Band of Angels is a 1957 romantic drama film set in the American South before and during the American Civil War, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Penn Warren. It starred Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, and Sidney Poitier. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh.-Plot:Amantha Starr is the...

    (1957)
  • Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
  • Istanbul
    Istanbul (film)
    Istanbul is a 1957 American drama film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Errol Flynn, Cornell Borchers and John Bentley. An American becomes mixed up with various criminal activities in Istanbul...

    (1957)
  • Darby's Rangers
    Darby's Rangers (1958 film)
    Darby's Rangers is a 1958 war film starring James Garner as William Orlando Darby, World War II commander of the 1st Ranger Battalion. The movie was shot by Warner Brothers Studios in black and white to match wartime stock footage included in the production and was directed by William...

    (1958)
  • The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
  • Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
  • Mutiny on the Bounty
    Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)
    Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...

    (1962) (uncredited)
  • The Sandpiper
    The Sandpiper
    The Sandpiper is a 1965 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by Vincente Minnelli.-Plot:Laura Reynolds is a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny in an isolated California beach house...

    (1965)


External links

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