Aidan McArdle
Macbeth
Richard McCabe
Colin McCormack
Alec McCowen
Ian McDiarmid
Martin McDonagh
Malcolm McDowell
John McEnery
Peter McEnery
Tom McGrath
Frank McGuinness
Jo McInnes
Ian McKellen
Peter McKintosh
Hilton McRae
Anna Madeley
Madness in Valencia
Dominic Mafham
The Maid's Tragedy
Major Barbara
The Malcontent
Michael Maloney
Malvern Festival
Man and Superman
Man is Man
Tom Mannion
The Man of Mode
The Man Who Came to Dinner
Lesley Manville
Marat/Sade
Tony Marchant
Claire Marchionne
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
Christopher Marlowe
The Marquis of Keith
The Marrying of Ann Leete
John Marston
Trevor Martin
Ashley Martin-Davis
Mary, After the Queen
Mary and Lizzie
Brewster Mason
Daniel Massey
Philip Massinger
The Master Builder
Maydays
Measure for Measure
Nancy Meckler
Joe Melia
Leonie Mellinger
Melons
Sam Mendes
Men's Beano
Mephisto
David Mercer
The Merchant of Venice
The Mermaid
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Meteor
Roger Michell
Thomas Middleton
Midnight's Children
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Midwinter
Arthur Miller
Jonathan Miller
Poppy Miller
Joseph Millson
Helen Mirren
Misalliance
A Miserable and Lonely Death
Les Misérables
Misha's Party
Miss Julie
The Mistake
Katie Mitchell
Tim Mitchell
Ariane Mnouchkine
Moby Dick
Molière
Molière (The Cabal of Saintly Hypocrites)
Money
A Month in the Country
Richard Moore
Hattie Morahan
Christopher Morley
Cherry Morris
Clive Morris
David Morrissey
Moscow Gold
Mother Courage
The Mouth Organ
Slawomir Mrozek
Much Ado About Nothing
Peter Mumford
Murder in the Cathedral
Gerard Murphy
The Mysteries
Daniel Massey was born into the high society of the British theatre during the era of Noël Coward (his godfather). But beneath the surface of his stylish acting—he was the Scarlet Pimpernel of the English stage—one sensed an undertone of gravitas, even melancholy.
The son of distinguished actors (Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen), Massey's career was set in motion by Coward, who cast his nine-year old godson as Bobby Kinross in In Which We Serve (1942). Following his education at Eton and Cambridge, Massey glided—by way of the Footlights (1956) and Agatha Christie's Peril at End House (Connaught Theatre, Worthing, 1956)—into West End comedies and musicals. It was to be his milieu for the next twenty years: The Happiest Millionaire (1957); Living for Pleasure (Garrick, 1958); the Monty Norman/David Heneker musical Make Me an Offer (Stratford East, 1959); Charles Surface in John Gielgud's The School for Scandal (Haymarket, 1962); The Three Musketeers (Nottingham Playhouse, 1962); the Jerry Bock musical She Loves Me (New York, 1963); Julius Caesar (Royal Court, 1964); the tutor in Michael Redgrave's A Month in the Country (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 1965); Barefoot in the Park (Piccadilly, 1965); Jack Absolute in The Rivals and John Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest (Haymarket, 1966-67); Abelard and Heloise (Wyndham's, 1970); Becket (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 1972); the musical Popkiss (Globe, 1972); Gaston in Gigi (New York, 1973); Lytton Strachey in Peter Luke's Bloomsbury (Phoenix, 1974); and The Gay Lord Quex (Albery, 1975). It is apposite that he enjoyed his biggest success as a movie actor portraying Noël Coward in Star! (Robert Wise, 1968).
Massey's priorities changed in the mid-1970s. He began a period of compelling classical and modern work that would take him from Shakespeare to Poliakoff by way of Calderón, Molière, Shaw, Granville-Barker, von Horvath and Pinter. During four outstanding years at the National he seemed to be pursuing an actress (his wife Penelope Wilton) and a theme (the battle of the sexes): Don Juan in von Horvath's Don Juan Comes Back from the War (Stewart Trotter, Cottesloe, 1978); Macduff in Macbeth (Peter Hall, Olivier, 1978); Shaw's The Philanderer (Christopher Morahan, Lyttelton, 1978); Robert alongside Michael Gambon and Penelope Wilton in Pinter's Betrayal (Hall, Lyttelton, 1978); John Tanner opposite Wilton in Shaw's Man and Superman (Morahan, Olivier, 1981); the Captain in Calderón's The Mayor of Zalamea (Michael Bogdanov, Cottesloe, 1981); Benedict opposite Wilton in Much Ado About Nothing (Peter Gill, Olivier, 1981); and Argan in The Hypochondriac (Bogdanov, Olivier, 1981). Then, at the RSC, 1983-85, he was Joe in William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (Howard Davies, TOP, Pit); Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (John Caird, RST, Barbican); an enigmatic and charismatic Duke, seducing Juliet Stevenson's Isabella by stealth, in Measure for Measure (Adrian Noble, RST, Barbican); Nikolai Pesiakoff in Stephen Poliakoff's Breaking the Silence (Pit); and Henry Trebell in Granville-Barker's Waste (John Barton, Pit, Lyric).
Massey's mellifluous voice was far less important than his Shavian wit and originality. He did return to the musical theatre to star in Sondheim's Follies (Shaftesbury Theatre, 1987), but serious drama remained at the centre of his work: Torvald in The Doll's House (Nick Dear, Haymarket, Leicester, 1989); Hector in Shaw's Heartbreak House (Trevor Nunn, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1992); Don Armado—the last in his collection of semi-crazed fantasists—in the RSC's Love's Labour's Lost (Ian Judge, RST, 1993, Barbican, 1994); General Burgoyne in Shaw's The Devil's Disciple (Morahan, NT Olivier, 1994); and Furtwangler in Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides (Harold Pinter, Minerva, Chichester, and Criterion, 1995, New York, 1996).
Films: Girls at Sea (1958); Upstairs and Downstairs (1959); Operation Bullshine (1959); Graham in John Osborne's The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960); starring alongside Robert Stephens in Michael Powell's The Queen's Guards (1961); opposite Maggie Smith in Go to Blazes (1962); The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (Terence Young, 1965); The Jokers (Michael Winner, 1967); Star! (Robert Wise, 1968); Fragment of Fear (1970); Dudley in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971); The Vault of Horror (1973); The Incredible Sarah (Richard Fleischer, 1976); The Cat and the Canary (1979); Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg, 1980); Victory (John Huston, 1981); Scandal (Michael Caton-Jones, 1989); In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan, 1993).
Television: Daniel in Sartre's Roads to Freedom (James Cellan Jones, BBC, 1970); Prince Amerigo in Henry James's The Golden Bowl (James Cellan Jones, BBC, 1972); Christopher Hampton's Able's Will (Stephen Frears, BBC, 1977); Intimate Contact (Waris Hussein, ITV, 1987); Inspector Morse (ITV, 1989); Alan Bleasdale's GBH (Channel Four, 1991); Columbus in Peter Barnes's Bye Bye Columbus (BBC, 1991); Trotsky in Stalin (Ivan Passer, 1992); The Vacillations of Poppy Carew (James Cellan Jones, ITV, 1995); Samson and Delilah (Nicolas Roeg, 1996).
Education: Eton; King's College, Cambridge
RSC: Joined 1983
Seasons: 1983 (Strat.)-84/85 (Lond.); 1993 (Strat.)-94 (Lond.)
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