Miles Malleson

Terry Teachout wrote recently: 

Known today solely for his small but striking character roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Stage Fright,” Anthony Asquith’s 1952 film version of “The Importance of Being Earnest” and several of Alec Guinness’ comedies, [Miles Malleson] was also a dramatist of no mean gifts whose plays had nonetheless vanished from the stage long before his death in 1969.

As a regular picturegoer in the 1950s, I was already familiar with Malleson's frequent appearances on film, usually as a rather bumbling elderly gent. Typical was his turn as the music-hall-obsessed parent of Ian Carmichael's Windrush in Private's Progress. So I was surprised when our young French master praised his work in bringing Moliere to the British stage (Moliere's Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite, was one of our set texts that year). Clearly this was someone whose own plays need looking at.

Here is proof that he was actually young once.