fbpx
Wikipedia

Kenneth Griffith

January 01, 1970

Not to be confused with Ken Griffiths.
For the South African cricketer, see Kenneth Griffith (cricketer).

Kenneth Griffith (born Kenneth Reginald Griffiths, 12 October 1921 – 25 June 2006) was a Welsh actor and documentary filmmaker. His outspoken views made him a controversial figure, especially when presenting documentaries which have been called "among the most brilliant, and controversial, ever made in Britain".[1]

Kenneth Griffith
Griffith in the 1976 BBC production Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
Born
Kenneth Reginald Griffiths

(1921-10-12)12 October 1921
Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales
Died25 June 2006(2006-06-25) (aged 84)
London, England
Occupation(s)Actor, television producer, television presenter
Years active1937–2003
Spouse(s)Joan Stock (divorced)
Doria Noar (divorced)
Carol Hagar (divorced)
Children5

Early life edit

He was born Kenneth Griffiths in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales. His parents separated and left Tenby six months after his birth, leaving him with his paternal grandparents, Emily and Ernest, who adopted him. His grandparents were staunch Wesleyan Methodists who taught him to question everything;[2] he attended the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel three times every Sunday, and became a lively rugby union scrum-half.[1]

He passed the 11-plus and attended Greenhill Grammar School in Tenby, where he met English literature teacher Evelyn Ward, who recognised his writing and acting talent. Before Kenneth left school, his headmaster J. T. Griffith suggested that he drop the "s" from his surname so it would sound less English.[3]

Career edit

Griffith left school and moved to Cambridge in 1937, taking a job at an ironmonger's weighing nails. This lasted only a day, and proved to be the only job he ever had outside the acting world.[citation needed] Also in 1937, he made his first professional acting appearance when he was cast by Peter Hoare as Cinna the Poet in a modern-dress version of Julius Caesar at the Cambridge Festival Theatre.[3]

He became a regular jobbing repertory actor, making his West End theatre debut in 1938 with a small part in Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday.[2]

Griffith was conscripted into the Royal Air Force during World War II. Before training in Canada, he returned to see his grandparents in Tenby, who, at his request, gave him an English translation of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf so he could better understand the origins of the war.[3] He caught scarlet fever while on his training and was invalided out of the service in 1942, which resulted in his taking up stamp collecting. The first stamp he collected was the Siege of Ladysmith, South Africa.[2][3]

In 1941, he made his debut in the first of more than 80 films, being Love on the Dole.[3] He joined the Liverpool, Lancashire-relocated Old Vic,[2] and in repertory.[4]

He appeared in many British films between the 1940s and 1980s, notably as Archie Fellows in The Shop at Sly Corner, Jenkins in Only Two Can Play (1962), the wireless operator Jack Phillips on board the Titanic in A Night to Remember (1958), in the crime caper Track the Man Down (1955) and especially in the comedies of the Boulting brothers, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959).[5] Other notable film roles included the murderous paedophile Seely in Revenge (1971), the gay medic Witty in The Wild Geese (1978) and a whimsical mechanic in The Sea Wolves (1980).[6][4]

He appeared in the episodes "The Girl Who Was Death" and "Fall Out" of the 1967–68 TV series The Prisoner.[5] Subsequent TV appearances included episodes of Minder and Lovejoy, and critically acclaimed performances in War and Peace (1963), The Perils of Pendragon, Clochemerle and The Bus to Bosworth, where his personification of a Welsh schoolteacher out on a field trip won him many accolades back in his homeland of Wales.[7][8]

His later film roles included the "mad old man" in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Reverend Jones in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995) and the minister in Very Annie Mary (2001).[5]

Documentaries and political activity edit

In 1965, Huw Wheldon and the director of BBC2, David Attenborough, asked Griffith if he would like to make a film for the BBC on any subject that he chose. This resulted in a series of BBC films on subjects as diverse as the Boer War in Soldiers of the Widow (1967), A Touch of Churchill, A Touch of Hitler (1971), the controversial story of Thomas Paine in The Most Valuable Englishman Ever, David Ben-Gurion (The Light), Napoleon Bonaparte (The Man on the Rock), Pandit Nehru, Roger Casement (Heart of Darkness, 1992) and on one occasion a film commissioned by Thames Television on the story of the Three Wise Men of the New Testament, A Famous Journey (1979). Griffith was expelled from Iran by the country's Foreign Minister while making the documentary.[4][9]

In 1973, Griffith made a documentary film about the life and death of Irish military and political leader Michael Collins titled Hang Up Your Brightest Colours (a line taken from a letter from George Bernard Shaw to one of Collins' sisters after Collins' assassination) for ATV, but the Independent Broadcasting Authority did not permit it to be screened (it was not shown until the BBC broadcast it in 1993).[10]

In 1974, for a programme titled Curious Journey, he interviewed nine surviving IRA members from the 1916–23 period, i.e. the Easter Rebellion, Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War; they were Maire Comerford, Joseph Sweeney, Sean Kavanagh, John O'Sullivan, Brigid Thornton, Sean Harling, Martin Walton, David Nelligan (or Neligan) and Tom Barry. He was allowed to buy this last film back, as long as he did not mention who had commissioned it (the Welsh TV company HTV). At one point in his career, Griffith accused the anti-censorship group Index of censoring him by delaying the publication of two book reviews he had written for its magazine.[1]

His sympathetic portrayal caused some concern, given The Troubles and ATV boss Sir Lew Grade decided to withdraw the film, which was not shown publicly until 1994. In response Griffith made a documentary, The Public's Right to Know, for Thames TV. The political troubles left him "a frustrated and bemused figure". Screenonline described Griffith as "a world class documentary film-maker" who knew that "refusing to compromise his views has damaged his career".[11]

His autobiography, The Fool's Pardon, was published in 1994 by Little, Brown.[12] BBC Wales presented a retrospective season of five of his documentaries in 1993, including the suppressed Michael Collins work, opening the season with a biographical study of Griffith called The Tenby Poisoner in which Peter O'Toole, Martin McGuinness and Jeremy Isaacs paid tribute.[4] BBC Wales screened a film on Griffith's life in the "Welsh Greats" Series Two, shown in 2008.[citation needed] In 1994, Griffith was given a Cymru lifetime achievement award by BAFTA.[13]

A Boer War historian, Griffith was sympathetic to the Afrikaners in South Africa. His documentary, Emily Hobhouse: The Englishwoman (1984), sympathised with the brutal treatment of Afrikaner women and children during the war that the British media suppressed. He also made a BBC2 documentary on runner Zola Budd, which purported to reveal injustices done to her by left-wing demonstrators and organisations during a tour of England in 1988.[14][15]

He named his home (110 Englefield Road, Islington, London) as Michael Collins' House. In later life, Griffith said: "In my time I've been accused of being a Marxist, a fascist, a traitor and, probably worst in most people's eyes, inconsistent. I was a radical Socialist. I'm now a radical Tory. It has been a very painful journey".[2]

Personal life edit

Griffith was married and divorced three times, and had five children:[1][3][16]

  • Joan Stock (one son)
  • Doria Noar (one daughter, actress/theatre historian Eva Griffith[17])
  • Carole Hagar (one daughter, two sons)

Death and burial edit

Griffith died in London on 25 June 2006, aged 84. His coffin was decorated with the flags of Wales, Israel and the Irish tricolour. Griffith was interred beside his grandparents, Emily and Ernest in the churchyard adjoining St Nicholas and St Teilo Church in Penally.[10]

Legacy edit

Tenby Museum and Art Gallery in Pembrokeshire houses an archive of Griffith's papers and documentaries, and a cabinet containing a collection of personal memorabilia.[18]

Filmography edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Barker, Dennis (27 June 2006). "Kenneth Griffith". The Guardian. London, UK. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Kenneth Griffith obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 27 June 2006. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Kenneth Griffith". The Independent. 27 June 2006. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d "BFI Screenonline: Griffith, Kenneth (1921-2006) Biography". screenonline.org.uk.
  5. ^ a b c . BFI. Archived from the original on 13 October 2017.
  6. ^ Arnold, Gary (14 November 1978). "'The Wild Geese': Betrayal of the African Mercenaries". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ "Kenneth Griffith". aveleyman.com.
  8. ^ "Bus to Bosworth". 29 February 1976. p. 20 – via BBC Genome.
  9. ^ Mark Lewis. "A distinguished troublemaker: The Kenneth Griffith archive at Tenby Museum". Museum Crush. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  10. ^ a b "Welsh film-maker fascinated by Irish history". The Irish Times.
  11. ^ "Actor Kenneth Griffith dies at 84". BBC. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  12. ^ Griffith, Kenneth (1994). The Fool's Pardon: the autobiography of Kenneth Griffith. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316908931.
  13. ^ "1994 Cymru Special Award: BAFTA Cymru Lifetime Achievement Award | BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
  14. ^ . Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 29 January 2009. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  15. ^ True to his beliefs, WalesOnline, 28 June 2006.
  16. ^ Barker 2011.
  17. ^ "Biography: Dr Eva Griffith". Eva Griffith. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  18. ^ "Tenby Museum & Art Gallery » On this day in 1947".

Sources edit

  • Barker, Dennis (2011) [2010]. "Griffith, Kenneth Reginald (1921–2006)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/97229. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links edit

  • Kenneth Griffith at IMDb

January 01, 1970
kenneth, griffith, confused, with, griffiths, south, african, cricketer, cricketer, born, kenneth, reginald, griffiths, october, 1921, june, 2006, welsh, actor, documentary, filmmaker, outspoken, views, made, controversial, figure, especially, when, presenting. Not to be confused with Ken Griffiths For the South African cricketer see Kenneth Griffith cricketer Kenneth Griffith born Kenneth Reginald Griffiths 12 October 1921 25 June 2006 was a Welsh actor and documentary filmmaker His outspoken views made him a controversial figure especially when presenting documentaries which have been called among the most brilliant and controversial ever made in Britain 1 Kenneth GriffithGriffith in the 1976 BBC production Give Me Liberty or Give Me DeathBornKenneth Reginald Griffiths 1921 10 12 12 October 1921Tenby Pembrokeshire WalesDied25 June 2006 2006 06 25 aged 84 London EnglandOccupation s Actor television producer television presenterYears active1937 2003Spouse s Joan Stock divorced Doria Noar divorced Carol Hagar divorced Children5 Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Documentaries and political activity 4 Personal life 5 Death and burial 6 Legacy 7 Filmography 8 References 9 Sources 10 External linksEarly life editHe was born Kenneth Griffiths in Tenby Pembrokeshire Wales His parents separated and left Tenby six months after his birth leaving him with his paternal grandparents Emily and Ernest who adopted him His grandparents were staunch Wesleyan Methodists who taught him to question everything 2 he attended the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel three times every Sunday and became a lively rugby union scrum half 1 He passed the 11 plus and attended Greenhill Grammar School in Tenby where he met English literature teacher Evelyn Ward who recognised his writing and acting talent Before Kenneth left school his headmaster J T Griffith suggested that he drop the s from his surname so it would sound less English 3 Career editGriffith left school and moved to Cambridge in 1937 taking a job at an ironmonger s weighing nails This lasted only a day and proved to be the only job he ever had outside the acting world citation needed Also in 1937 he made his first professional acting appearance when he was cast by Peter Hoare as Cinna the Poet in a modern dress version of Julius Caesar at the Cambridge Festival Theatre 3 He became a regular jobbing repertory actor making his West End theatre debut in 1938 with a small part in Thomas Dekker s The Shoemaker s Holiday 2 Griffith was conscripted into the Royal Air Force during World War II Before training in Canada he returned to see his grandparents in Tenby who at his request gave him an English translation of Hitler s book Mein Kampf so he could better understand the origins of the war 3 He caught scarlet fever while on his training and was invalided out of the service in 1942 which resulted in his taking up stamp collecting The first stamp he collected was the Siege of Ladysmith South Africa 2 3 In 1941 he made his debut in the first of more than 80 films being Love on the Dole 3 He joined the Liverpool Lancashire relocated Old Vic 2 and in repertory 4 He appeared in many British films between the 1940s and 1980s notably as Archie Fellows in The Shop at Sly Corner Jenkins in Only Two Can Play 1962 the wireless operator Jack Phillips on board the Titanic in A Night to Remember 1958 in the crime caper Track the Man Down 1955 and especially in the comedies of the Boulting brothers including Private s Progress 1956 and I m All Right Jack 1959 5 Other notable film roles included the murderous paedophile Seely in Revenge 1971 the gay medic Witty in The Wild Geese 1978 and a whimsical mechanic in The Sea Wolves 1980 6 4 He appeared in the episodes The Girl Who Was Death and Fall Out of the 1967 68 TV series The Prisoner 5 Subsequent TV appearances included episodes of Minder and Lovejoy and critically acclaimed performances in War and Peace 1963 The Perils of Pendragon Clochemerle and The Bus to Bosworth where his personification of a Welsh schoolteacher out on a field trip won him many accolades back in his homeland of Wales 7 8 His later film roles included the mad old man in Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994 Reverend Jones in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain 1995 and the minister in Very Annie Mary 2001 5 Documentaries and political activity editIn 1965 Huw Wheldon and the director of BBC2 David Attenborough asked Griffith if he would like to make a film for the BBC on any subject that he chose This resulted in a series of BBC films on subjects as diverse as the Boer War in Soldiers of the Widow 1967 A Touch of Churchill A Touch of Hitler 1971 the controversial story of Thomas Paine in The Most Valuable Englishman Ever David Ben Gurion The Light Napoleon Bonaparte The Man on the Rock Pandit Nehru Roger Casement Heart of Darkness 1992 and on one occasion a film commissioned by Thames Television on the story of the Three Wise Men of the New Testament A Famous Journey 1979 Griffith was expelled from Iran by the country s Foreign Minister while making the documentary 4 9 In 1973 Griffith made a documentary film about the life and death of Irish military and political leader Michael Collins titled Hang Up Your Brightest Colours a line taken from a letter from George Bernard Shaw to one of Collins sisters after Collins assassination for ATV but the Independent Broadcasting Authority did not permit it to be screened it was not shown until the BBC broadcast it in 1993 10 In 1974 for a programme titled Curious Journey he interviewed nine surviving IRA members from the 1916 23 period i e the Easter Rebellion Anglo Irish War and Irish Civil War they were Maire Comerford Joseph Sweeney Sean Kavanagh John O Sullivan Brigid Thornton Sean Harling Martin Walton David Nelligan or Neligan and Tom Barry He was allowed to buy this last film back as long as he did not mention who had commissioned it the Welsh TV company HTV At one point in his career Griffith accused the anti censorship group Index of censoring him by delaying the publication of two book reviews he had written for its magazine 1 His sympathetic portrayal caused some concern given The Troubles and ATV boss Sir Lew Grade decided to withdraw the film which was not shown publicly until 1994 In response Griffith made a documentary The Public s Right to Know for Thames TV The political troubles left him a frustrated and bemused figure Screenonline described Griffith as a world class documentary film maker who knew that refusing to compromise his views has damaged his career 11 His autobiography The Fool s Pardon was published in 1994 by Little Brown 12 BBC Wales presented a retrospective season of five of his documentaries in 1993 including the suppressed Michael Collins work opening the season with a biographical study of Griffith called The Tenby Poisoner in which Peter O Toole Martin McGuinness and Jeremy Isaacs paid tribute 4 BBC Wales screened a film on Griffith s life in the Welsh Greats Series Two shown in 2008 citation needed In 1994 Griffith was given a Cymru lifetime achievement award by BAFTA 13 A Boer War historian Griffith was sympathetic to the Afrikaners in South Africa His documentary Emily Hobhouse The Englishwoman 1984 sympathised with the brutal treatment of Afrikaner women and children during the war that the British media suppressed He also made a BBC2 documentary on runner Zola Budd which purported to reveal injustices done to her by left wing demonstrators and organisations during a tour of England in 1988 14 15 He named his home 110 Englefield Road Islington London as Michael Collins House In later life Griffith said In my time I ve been accused of being a Marxist a fascist a traitor and probably worst in most people s eyes inconsistent I was a radical Socialist I m now a radical Tory It has been a very painful journey 2 Personal life editGriffith was married and divorced three times and had five children 1 3 16 Joan Stock one son Doria Noar one daughter actress theatre historian Eva Griffith 17 Carole Hagar one daughter two sons Death and burial editGriffith died in London on 25 June 2006 aged 84 His coffin was decorated with the flags of Wales Israel and the Irish tricolour Griffith was interred beside his grandparents Emily and Ernest in the churchyard adjoining St Nicholas and St Teilo Church in Penally 10 Legacy editTenby Museum and Art Gallery in Pembrokeshire houses an archive of Griffith s papers and documentaries and a cabinet containing a collection of personal memorabilia 18 Filmography editChannel Incident 1940 as Johnnie The Farmer s Wife 1941 as George Smerdon Love on the Dole 1941 as Harry s Pal in Billiard Hall uncredited The Black Sheep of Whitehall 1942 as Butcher s Boy uncredited Hard Steel 1942 as Dixon The Forest Rangers 1942 as Ranger The Great Mr Handel 1942 as Minor role uncredited Young and Willing 1943 as Older Actor uncredited The Shop at Sly Corner 1947 as Archie Fellows Fame Is the Spur 1947 as Wartime Miners Representative uncredited Bond Street 1948 as Len Phillips Forbidden 1949 as Johnny Helter Skelter 1949 as Nick Martin s BBC Colleague uncredited Blue Scar 1949 as Thomas Williams Waterfront 1950 as Maurice Bruno High Treason 1951 as Jimmy Ellis 36 Hours 1953 as Henry Slosson The Green Carnation 1954 as Nobby The Prisoner 1955 as the Secretary Track the Man Down 1955 as Ken Orwell Private s Progress 1956 as Private Dai Jones 1984 1956 as Prisoner The Baby and the Battleship 1956 as Sub Lieutenant Tiger in the Smoke 1956 as Crutches Brothers in Law 1957 as Hearse Driver Lucky Jim 1957 as Cyril Johns The Naked Truth 1957 as Porter Blue Murder at St Trinian s 1957 as Charlie Bull A Night to Remember 1958 as Wireless Operator John Jack Phillips Chain of Events 1958 as Clarke The Man Upstairs 1958 as Mr Pollen The Two Headed Spy 1958 as Adolf Hitler Tiger Bay 1959 as Choirmaster Carlton Browne of the F O 1959 as Sir John s Assistant Griffths uncredited I m All Right Jack 1959 as Dai Libel 1959 as Fitch Expresso Bongo 1959 as Charlie uncredited Circus of Horrors 1960 as Martin A French Mistress 1960 as Mr Meade Suspect 1960 as Dr Shole Snowball 1960 as Phil Hart Payroll 1961 as Monty Rag Doll 1961 as Wilson The Frightened City 1961 as Wally Smith Only Two Can Play 1962 as Ieuan Jenkins The Painted Smile 1962 as Kleinie We Joined the Navy 1962 as Orator Heavens Above 1963 as Rev Owen Thomas Rotten to the Core 1965 as Lenny the Dip The Whisperers 1967 as Mr Weaver The Bobo 1967 as Pepe Gamazo The Prisoner 1968 as The President Schnipps Number Two Decline and Fall of a Birdwatcher 1968 as Mr Church The Lion in Winter 1968 as Strolling Player Great Catherine 1968 as Naryshkin The Assassination Bureau 1969 as Monsieur Popescu The Gamblers 1970 as Broadfoot Revenge 1971 as Seely Clochemerle TV Series 1972 as Ernest Tafardel The House in Nightmare Park 1973 as Ernest Henderson Callan 1974 as Waterman S P Y S 1974 as Lippet Sky Riders 1976 as Wasserman Why Shoot the Teacher 1977 as Inspector Woods The Wild Geese 1978 as Arthur Witty The Sea Wolves 1980 as Wilton Who Dares Wins 1982 as Bishop Crick Remembrance 1982 as Joe The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood 1984 as Isaac of York Emily Hobhouse The Englishwoman 1985 as Presenter Shaka Zulu TV series 1986 as Zacharias Abrahams Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994 as Mad Old Man Wedding One and Four The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain 1995 as Reverend Jones Very Annie Mary 2001 as MinisterReferences edit a b c d Barker Dennis 27 June 2006 Kenneth Griffith The Guardian London UK Retrieved 14 July 2009 a b c d e Kenneth Griffith obituary The Daily Telegraph 27 June 2006 Retrieved 14 July 2009 a b c d e f Kenneth Griffith The Independent 27 June 2006 Retrieved 14 July 2009 a b c d BFI Screenonline Griffith Kenneth 1921 2006 Biography screenonline org uk a b c Kenneth Griffith BFI Archived from the original on 13 October 2017 Arnold Gary 14 November 1978 The Wild Geese Betrayal of the African Mercenaries The Washington Post Kenneth Griffith aveleyman com Bus to Bosworth 29 February 1976 p 20 via BBC Genome Mark Lewis A distinguished troublemaker The Kenneth Griffith archive at Tenby Museum Museum Crush Retrieved 10 December 2022 a b Welsh film maker fascinated by Irish history The Irish Times Actor Kenneth Griffith dies at 84 BBC Retrieved 23 August 2017 Griffith Kenneth 1994 The Fool s Pardon the autobiography of Kenneth Griffith London Little Brown ISBN 9780316908931 1994 Cymru Special Award BAFTA Cymru Lifetime Achievement Award BAFTA Awards awards bafta org Zola Budd The Girl Who Didn t Run 1989 Ftvdb bfi org uk Archived from the original on 29 January 2009 Retrieved 23 August 2017 True to his beliefs WalesOnline 28 June 2006 Barker 2011 Biography Dr Eva Griffith Eva Griffith Retrieved 9 July 2020 Tenby Museum amp Art Gallery On this day in 1947 Sources editBarker Dennis 2011 2010 Griffith Kenneth Reginald 1921 2006 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 97229 Subscription or UK public library membership required External links editKenneth Griffith at IMDb Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Kenneth Griffith amp oldid 1219109719, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.