Michael Bryant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Michael Dennis Bryant (5 April 1928 – 25 April 2002) was a British stage and television actor.
Bryant attended Battersea Grammar School and after service in the Merchant Navy and Army, he attended drama school and appeared in many productions on the London stage. He made his film debut in 1955. His greatest role was Mathieu in BBC2's 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy. His guest star appearance as Wing Commander Marsh, who feigns insanity in the 'Tweedledum' episode of the BBC drama series, Colditz (1972), is still widely remembered.
Bryant was chosen by Orson Welles to play the lead role in The Deep, Welles's adaptation of the Charles Williams novel Dead Calm. The production frequently ran out of money, and following the death of actor Laurence Harvey in 1973, Welles stopped production and announced the movie - which had been completed except for one special effects shot of a ship exploding - would not be released. (The novel was finally adapted to film in 1989.)
In 1969 Bryant took his love of the stage on a strange trip into the realm of cult films, playing a clever male prostitute who outwits a delusional family of killers in the dark comedy Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly, an adaptation of a play by Maisie Mosco. Due to poor marketing and a lack of faith in the film by the distributor, the film quickly sank into obscurity even before it could develop a cult following.
One of Bryant's most memorable performances was in the classic BBC television play The Stone Tape (1972), in which he plays the leader of a team of scientists who investigate ghost sightings in a brooding gothic mansion.
Bryant also had a supporting role as a sadistic psychiatrist in the cult classic black comedy The Ruling Class, with Peter O'Toole and Alastair Sim. He also appeared in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) as a British diplomat.
Having played Lenin in the film Nicholas and Alexandria, Bryant would later reprise the role in Robert Bolt's play State of Revolution (1977). He had previously co-starred in Bolt's unsuccessful Gentle Jack. The 1977 production of a Bolt play though was significant for featuring the first role he performed at the National Theatre where he was a constant presence for a quarter of a century. Bryant, described by Michael Billington as "rock-solid company man", had earlier performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964, including the premiere production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming (1965), in which he played Teddy, the returning academic.
In 1980, Michael Bryant won the London Drama Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor, and his other theatrical performances were equally well thought of. Bryant won Laurence Olivier Awards in 1988 and 1990 and was nominated twice more.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Bryant (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 1.226 |
Birthday | 1928-04-05 |
Place of Birth | London, England, UK |
Also Known As |
2000
The Miracle Maker
5.927/41
A mother and father in search of help for their sick daughter cross paths with an extraordinary carpenter named Jesus, who has devoted his life to spr...
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The Miracle Maker
1972
The Ruling Class
6.5/78
When the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman;...
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The Ruling Class
1972
The Stone Tape
5.912/34
A research team from an electronics company move into an old Victorian house to start work on finding a new recording medium. When team member Jill Gr...
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The Stone Tape
1970
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly
6.111/36
A wealthy, fatherless British clan kidnaps bums and hippies and forces them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the per...
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Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly
1971
Nicholas and Alexandra
6.896/67
Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.
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Nicholas and Alexandra
1968
Mille Miglia
0/0
In 1955 Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the Mille Miglia, one of the toughest races in the calendar.This play is about the two men, and the qual...
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Mille Miglia
1995
Orson Welles: The One-Man Band
6.4/14
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Orson Welles: The One-Man Band
1963
The Mind Benders
6.3/23
A British scientist is discovered to have been passing information to the Communists, then kills himself. Another scientist decides that they might ha...
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The Mind Benders
1996
Hamlet
7.337/460
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Hamlet
1967
The Deadly Affair
6.2/85
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife...
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The Deadly Affair
1974
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
6.4/10
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The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
1956
Uranium Boom
6/2
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Uranium Boom
1998
King Lear
8/1
Adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
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King Lear
1984
Sakharov
7/1
Biography of Russian physicist & dissident Andrei Sakharov focuses on his first acts in his civil rights.
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Sakharov
1993
Anna Lee: Headcase
6/5
A bright, pretty and determined young lady named Anna Lee quits the police department in search of adventure, and joins a small and somewhat stuffy de...
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Anna Lee: Headcase
2007
The Deep
0/0
A couple's honeymoon trip aboard a yacht leads to a claustrophobic drama when another vessel runs into their voyage, apparently drifting. Shot in a pi...
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The Deep
1967
Torture Garden
6.083/72
Five people visit a fairground sideshow run by the sinister Dr. Diabolo. Having shown them a handful of haunted-house-style attractions, he promises t...
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Torture Garden
1968
The Explorer
0/0
Drama about the emotional problems left behind by a young explorer murdered in the Matto Grosso jungle in South America. (Shotlist)Work historyTV play...
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The Explorer
1982
Gandhi
7.561/2260
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian...
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Gandhi
1971
The Switch
0/0
South Vietnam. Working as the head of voluntary relief team Henry Martin objects to the use of torture on prisoners. Martin's principles are tested wh...
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The Switch
1974
If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
0/0
Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.
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If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
1974
Is It Something I Said?
0/0
A businessman having a nervous breakdown checks in for one last night at a shabby hotel where he composes a suicide note. The hotel owner intervenes a...
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Is It Something I Said?
1974
Mr. Axelford's Angel
8.5/2
A romantic tale of a scatty secretary and a stuffy boss.
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Mr. Axelford's Angel
1977
Short Back and Sides
0/0
A city planner puts his breinchild into operation without considering the heartbreak it causes to the people affected.
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Short Back and Sides
1973
The Professional
0/0
An insignificant little middle-aged man strikes a heinous bargain with an underworld expert. The man has a problem: his wife. A professional killer wo...
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The Professional
1972
The Greeks and Their Gifts
0/0
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The Greeks and Their Gifts
1967
Easier in the Dark
0/0
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Easier in the Dark
1974
Caravan to Vaccarès
5.2/8
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Caravan to Vaccarès
1988
Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'
0/0
BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990.This documentary is one of the ten films of "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)".
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Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'
1976
My Homeland
0/0
Perhaps this is Robert Vas' most personal film; a portrait of his country - Hungary - as seen through the eyes of an exile. Robert Vas escaped from hi...
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My Homeland
1972
The Duchess of Malfi
0/0
The Duchess of Malfi is recently widowed and her greedy brothers are determined she will not marry again, so they employ Daniel De Bosola, a murderer...
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The Duchess of Malfi
1969
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
6.7/37
Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help...
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Goodbye, Mr. Chips
1955
Passage Home
5.6/6
Set in 1931, the film takes place aboard a merchant ship, briefly harboured in South America. A young woman (Diane Cilento) boards the ship as a passe...
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Passage Home
1970
The Three Sisters
6/1
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The Three Sisters
1982
The Merry Wives of Windsor
8/2
When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Wh...
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The Merry Wives of Windsor
1962
Life for Ruth
6.2/6
John Harris finds himself ostracized and placed on trial for allowing his daughter Ruth to die. His religious beliefs forbade him to give consent for...
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Life for Ruth
1958
A Night to Remember
7.572/243
The sinking of the Titanic is presented in a highly realistic fashion in this tense British drama. The disaster is portrayed largely from the perspect...
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A Night to Remember
1982
A Genius Like Us: A Portrait of Joe Orton
0/0
Documentary portrait of the life of playwright Joe Orton, who was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in April 1967.
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A Genius Like Us: A Portrait of Joe Orton
1976
The Daedalus Equations
0/0
Hans Daedalus has defected from East Germany to the West. Is it possible that his opacity equations live on after his death?
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The Daedalus Equations
2020
The Curse Of Denton Rose
0/0
A computer analyst suddenly finds himself the focus of Hollywood elites after creating a character that goes viral online in the early days of interne...
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The Curse Of Denton Rose
1991
Heading Home
5.5/4
The story of a woman who falls in love with two very different men in post World War II London.
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