Lionel Jeffries

Jeffries was born in Forest Hill, south London.{{Cite ODNB|id=102888|title=Jeffries, Lionel Charles (1926–2010)}} Both his parents were social workers with the Salvation Army. As a boy, he attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wimborne Minster in Dorset.

In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and served in Burma at the Rangoon radio station during the Second World War, being awarded the Burma Star. (He blamed the humidity there for his hair loss at the age of 19.) He also served as a captain in the Royal West African Frontier Force.

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He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.{{cite news |title=Actor and director Lionel Jeffries dies, aged 83 |url=http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8524335.stm |publisher=BBC News |date=19 February 2010 |access-date=20 February 2010}} He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield, Staffordshire for two years and appeared in early British television plays.{{CN|date=January 2024}}

Jeffries built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself, such as the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries was actually six months younger than Van Dyke, who was born on 13 December 1925.

His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), Murder Ahoy! (opposite Margaret Rutherford), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967).{{CN|date=January 2024}}

Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films, including a well-regarded version of The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972). He was a member of the British Catholic Stage Guild.

Jeffries had a negative attitude towards television and avoided the medium for many years. He reluctantly appeared on television in an acting role in the 1980 London Weekend Television Dennis Potter drama Cream in My Coffee and realised that television production values were now little different from those in the film industry; as a result he developed a belated career in television.{{CN|date=January 2024}} He appeared in an episode of the Thames Television/ITV comedy drama Minder in 1983 as Cecil Caine, an eccentric widower, and in an episode of Inspector Morse in 1990 (Central Television/Zenith/ITV).{{CN|date=January 2024}}

He starred as Tom (Thomas Maddisson) in the Thames/ITV situation comedy Tom, Dick and Harriet with Ian Ogilvy and Brigit Forsyth.https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/tom_dick_and_harriet/ British Comedy Guide During location filming with Ogilvy for a 1983 episode, a stunt involving a car and a lake went very badly wrong, ending up with Jeffries only just managing to get out of the car's front window before the vehicle sank in {{convert|45|feet}} of water.{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8027632/|title=When Comedy Goes Horribly Wrong|date=10 May 2022|publisher=IMDb}}

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Jeffries began to suffer from vascular dementia in 1998{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/28/ty-jeffries-miss-hope-springs|title=Dad was too much to compete with|first=Maureen|last=Paton|date=28 January 2012|website=The Guardian}} and retired from acting in 2001. His health declined in the following years. He died on 19 February 2010, at a nursing home in Poole, Dorset. He was 83.

The name of Jeffries is mentioned before the ending titles of the film The First Men in the Moon, released in 2010: "For Lionel Jeffries 1926–2010".{{CN|date=January 2024}}

Jeffries was married to Eileen Mary Walsh from 1951 until his death. They had a son and two daughters.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7272828/Lionel-Jeffries.html |title=Lionel Jeffries – Telegraph |work=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=19 February 2010 | location=London | date=19 February 2010}} Their son Ty Jeffries is a composer, lyricist and cabaret artist.{{CN|date=January 2024}} Their granddaughter Amy Mason is a novelist and playwright.{{CN|date=January 2024}}

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Acting roles

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• Stage Fright (1950) – Bald RADA Student (uncredited)
• Will Any Gentleman...? (1953) – Mr. Frobisher
• The Black Rider (1954) – Martin Bremner
• The Colditz Story (1955) – Harry Tyler
• The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) – Blake
• No Smoking (1955) – George Pogson
• All for Mary (1955) – Maitre D', Hotel
• Windfall (1955) – Arthur Lee
• Jumping for Joy (1956) – Bert Benton
• Bhowani Junction (1956) – Captain McDaniel
• The Baby and the Battleship (1956) – George
• Eyewitness (1956) – Man in Pub
• Lust for Life (1956) – Dr. Peyron
• High Terrace (1956) – Monkton
• Up in the World (1957) – Wilson
• The Man in the Sky (1957) – Keith
• Doctor at Large (1957) – Dr. Hatchet
• Hour of Decision (1957) – Elvin Main
• The Vicious Circle (1957) – Geoffrey Windsor
• Barnacle Bill (1957) – Garrod
• Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) – Joe Mangan
• Dunkirk (1958) – Colonel – Medical Officer
• Charles and Mary (1958, TV Movie) – George Dyer
• Up the Creek (1958) – Steady Barker
• The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) – Fritz
• Law and Disorder (1958) – Major Proudfoot
• Orders to Kill (1958) – Interrogator
• Girls at Sea (1958) – Harry, the Tourist
• Behind the Mask (1958) – Walter Froy
• Further Up the Creek (1958) – Steady Barker
• Nowhere to Go (1958) – Pet Shop Clerk (uncredited)
• Idol on Parade (1959) – Bertie
• The Nun's Story (1959) – Dr. Goovaerts
• Bobbikins (1959) – Gregory Mason
• Please Turn Over (1959) – Ian Howard
• Two-Way Stretch (1960) – Chief P.O. Crout
• Jazz Boat (1960) – Sergeant Thompson
• Life Is a Circus (1960) – Genie
• Let's Get Married (1960) – Marsh
• The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) – John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry
• Tarzan the Magnificent (1960) – Ames
• Fanny (1961) – Monsieur Brun (The Englishman)
• The Hellions (1961) – Luke Billings
• Operation Snatch (1962) – Evans
• Mrs. Gibbon's Boys (1962) – Lester Gibbons
• The Notorious Landlady (1962) – Inspector Oliphant
• Kill or Cure (1962) – Det. Insp. Hook
• The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) – Inspector Fred 'Nosey' Parker
• Call me Bwana (1963) – Ezra
• The Scarlet Blade (1963) – Col. Judd
• The Long Ships (1964) – Aziz
• First Men in the Moon (1964) – Cavor / Joseph Cavor
• Murder Ahoy! (1964) – Captain Sydney De Courcy Rhumstone
• The Truth About Spring (1965) – 'Cark' / Cark
• You Must Be Joking! (1965) – Sgt. Maj. McGregor
• The Secret of My Success (1965) – Insp. Hobart / Baron von Lukenberg / The Earl of Aldershot / President Esteda
• The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966) – Stanley Farquhar
• Drop Dead Darling (1966) – Parker
• Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (1967) – Airport Commander
• Camelot (1967) – King Pellinore
• Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) – Sir Charles Dillworthy
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) – Grandpa Potts
• 12 + 1 (1969) – Randomhouse
• Twinky (1970) – Solicitor
• Eyewitness (1970) – Grandpa
• The Railway Children (1970) – Malcolm (uncredited)
• Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) – Inspector Ralph Willoughby
• Royal Flash (1975) – Kraftstein
• What Changed Charley Farthing? (1976) – Houlihan
• Wombling Free (1978) – Womble (voice)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) – General Sapt
• Cream in My Coffee (1980, TV Movie) – Bernard Wilsher
• Father Charlie (1982, TV Series) - Father Charlie
• Better Late Than Never (1983) – Bertie Hargreaves
• Abel's Island (1988 short) – Gower (voice)
• Danny, the Champion of the World (1989, TV Movie) – Mr. Snoddy
• A Chorus of Disapproval (1989) – Jarvis Huntley-Pike
• First and Last (1989, TV Movie) – Laurence
• Ending Up (1989, TV Movie) – Shorty
• Inspector Morse. The Sins of the Fathers (1990, TV Series) - Charles Radford
• Jekyll & Hyde (1990, TV Movie) – Jekyll's Father
• Heaven on Earth (1998, TV Movie) – Isaac Muller

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{{Wikiquote}}

• {{IMDb name|0420383}}
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• {{Screenonline name|564175}}
• [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7272828/Lionel-Jeffries.html Lionel Jeffries] – Daily Telegraph obituary
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110615075811/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article7034483.ece Lionel Jeffries] – Times obituary

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Category:1926 births

Category:2010 deaths

Category:20th-century English male actors

Category:20th-century English male writers

Category:20th-century English screenwriters

Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Category:British Army personnel of World War II

Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism

Category:Deaths from dementia in England

Category:Deaths from vascular dementia

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male screenwriters

Category:English male stage actors

Category:English male television actors

Category:English film directors

Category:English Roman Catholics

Category:Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry officers

Category:Male actors from Dorset

Category:Military personnel from the London Borough of Lewisham

Category:Actors from the London Borough of Lewisham

Category:Male actors from London

Category:People educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Wimborne Minster

Category:Royal West African Frontier Force officers

Category:Audiobook narrators

Category:People from Forest Hill, London