Mariah Gale
Michael Gambon
Romola Garai
Jimmy Gardner
William Gaskill
John Gay
Peter Geddis
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The General from America
Jean Genet
Michel de Ghelderode
Ghosts
John Gielgud
The Gift of the Gorgon
Alexandra Gilbreath
Peter Gill
Jean Giraudoux
Iain Glen
Robert Glenister
Jamie Glover
Julian Glover
The Glowing Manikin
God Bless
Derek Godfrey
Patrick Godfrey
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nikolai Gogol
Golden Girls
Carlo Goldoni
Stella Gonet
Good
Buzz Goodbody
Henry Goodman
Goodnight Children Everywhere
Rupert Goold
Marius Goring
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Gordon Gostelow
Orlando Gough
The Government Inspector
Fraser Grace
Nickolas Grace
Michael Grandage
Harley Granville-Barker
Günter Grass
Trystan Gravelle
Simon Gray
Great Expectations
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The Greeks
Graham Greene
Paul Greenwood
David Greig
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Trevor Griffiths
Pippa Guard
Vladimir Gubaryev
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Mike Gwilym
Derek Godfrey, who died in 1983 at the age of fifty-nine, has almost faded from the theatrical record. Today it is difficult to find an obituary, let alone a full account of his life and work. And yet Godfrey was a charismatic leading actor who attained the highest level of achievement on the stage, not least at the RSC where, during the early 1960s, he played Orsino to Dorothy Tutin's Viola in Twelfth Night, Petruchio to Vanessa Redgrave's Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, and Macheath in The Beggar's Opera. At the time of his death he was enjoying a new phase of work with the Company. Godfrey was not a celebrity actor, and never became a screen star: the best of his career, therefore, is sadly hidden away in clippings and photographs.
He first worked with the Stratford company in 1953, cast as Peto in Henry IV Part One (Anthony Quayle, New Zealand Tour). It was at the Old Vic in 1956-57 that he made his name as a Shakespearean actor playing the title role in Titus Andronicus (Walter Hudd); Iachimo in Cymbeline (Michael Benthall); Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra (Robert Helpmann); and the Duke of Milan in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Michael Langham). He became a pivotal actor for Peter Hall at the RSC during the early 1960s, starring in a body of work that included Christopher Fry and John Whiting as well as Shakespeare: Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Peter Hall, RST, 1960); Orsino in Twelfth Night (Hall, RST, 1960); Hector in Troilus and Cressida (Hall, RST, 1960, Aldwych, 1962); Antonio in the Peggy Ashcroft Duchess of Malfi (Donald McWhinnie, RST, 1960, Aldwych, 1960-61); King of Ondines in Ondine (Hall, Aldwych, 1961); De la Rochepozay/Henri de Conde in The Devils (Peter Wood, Aldwych, 1961); Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (Maurice Daniels, Aldwych, 1961, RST, 1962); Henry in Christopher Fry's Curtmantle (Stuart Burge, Aldwych and RST, 1962); Bernard in Everything in the Garden (McWhinnie, Arts Theatre, 1962); The Hollow Crown (John Barton, Aldwych, 1962, 1967); Macheath in The Beggar's Opera (Wood, Aldwych, 1963); Charles in Roger Vitrac's Victor (Robin Midgley, Aldwych, 1964); Machevil in The Jew of Malta (Clifford Williams, Aldwych, 1964); and Theseus in Peter Hall's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968). At the RST and Aldwych in 1971/72 he succeeded Donald Sinden as Malvolio in John Barton's famous production of Twelfth Night and starred opposite Elizabeth Spriggs in Much Ado About Nothing (Ronald Eyre).
Screen work dominated Godfrey's career during his 40s. He appeared in the horror films The Vengeance of She (1968), The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) and Hands of the Ripper (1971), and on television in the BBC's The Pallisers (1974) and The Tempest (1980).
From 1980 he was back at the RSC, effortlessly authoritative as Jaques in As You Like It (Terry Hands, RST, 1980, Aldwych, 1981); Claudius in the Michael Pennington Hamlet (Barton, RST, 1980, Aldwych, 1981); Buckingham in the Alan Howard Richard III (Hands, RST, 1980, Aldwych, 1981); Henry in Howard Brenton's Thirteenth Night (Barry Kyle, Warehouse, 1981); Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing (Hands, RST, 1982, Barbican, 1983); Solveig's Father/Button-Moulder/The Strange Passenger in Peer Gynt (Ron Daniels, TOP, 1982); Louis XIV in Molière (Bill Alexander, TOP, 1982); and the Rector in Nick Darke's The Body (Nick Hamm, Pit, 1983).
RSC: Joined 1953
Seasons: 1953 (New Zealand Tour); 1960 (Strat.)-60/61 (Lond.); 1962 (Strat./Lond.); 1963 (Lond.); 1964 (Lond.); 1967 (Lond.); 1971 (Strat.)-71/72 (Lond.); 1980 (Strat.)-81 (Lond.); 1982 (Strat.)-83 (Lond.)
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