Alan Wheatley was a well known stage actor in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, appeared in forty films between 1931 and 1965 and was a frequent broadcaster on radio from the 1930s to the 1990s, and on television from 1938 to 1964.
24 Facts About Alan Wheatley
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Alan Wheatley was born in Tolworth, Surrey, on 19 April 1907, the son of William Henry Alan Wheatley and his wife Rose Eva.
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Alan Wheatley was educated at Tiffin School, and was then employed in industrial psychology.
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Alan Wheatley made his first appearance on the stage at the Festival Theatre, Cambridge in October 1928, as Randall Utterword in Heartbreak House, after which he was a member of the repertory company at that theatre and later in Hull.
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In November 1931 Alan Wheatley performed in London at the Embassy and St Martin's theatres, as the Journalist in Britannia of Billingsgate.
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Alan Wheatley appeared at the Malvern Festival in August 1933, before returning to the West End, where his roles included Edgar in King Lear to the Lear of William Devlin.
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Alan Wheatley made his Broadway debut in the same year, in the Old Vic's production of St Helena, playing Las Cases to the Bonaparte of Maurice Evans.
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Alan Wheatley subsequently toured in Scandinavia and adjoining countries, as Major Petkoff in Arms and the Man and Arnold Champion-Cheney in The Circle.
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Alan Wheatley appeared in several films in the 1930s, and, already a frequent broadcaster on BBC radio, he made his first television appearance in August 1938, playing Lane in The Importance of Being Earnest.
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In September 1939 at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War Alan Wheatley joined the BBC Drama Repertory Company.
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Alan Wheatley made English translations of several of them; "Lament on the Death of a Bullfighter" was the first to be completed, and was broadcast by the BBC in 1946.
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Alan Wheatley recorded nine of his translations for the gramophone in 1953, released in Britain on the Argo label and in the US by Westminster Records.
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When BBC television resumed after its suspension during the war, Alan Wheatley played a wide range of characters, from Sam Weller again, to the humorously cynical schoolmaster Rupert Billings in The Happiest Days of Your Life and the tragic king in Richard II.
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In 1945 Alan Wheatley rejoined the Old Vic company, touring as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.
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The reviewer in The Stage thought Alan Wheatley displayed "a good voice and presence" in the role but was "rather lightweight".
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In 1951 Alan Wheatley played Sherlock Holmes in a series of six televised dramatisations of Conan Doyle stories.
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Alan Wheatley's co-stars were Raymond Francis as Dr Watson and Bill Owen as Inspector Lestrade.
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Between 1955 and 1959 Alan Wheatley is recorded by the British Film Institute as appearing in 54 episodes of the ABC television series The Adventures of Robin Hood as the Sheriff of Nottingham, the perpetual adversary of Robin.
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Alan Wheatley played the role "with many a villainous smile", as The Times said, but eventually withdrew from it.
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Concurrently with some of the Robin Hood series, Alan Wheatley played Pontius Pilate in a BBC television religious drama series, Jesus of Nazareth first shown in 1956.
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Alan Wheatley played Richard D'Oyly Carte in a three-part BBC television series Gilbert and Sullivan: The Immortal Jesters, and appeared in episodes of Maigret, Doctor Who, where his character was the first ever to be seen being killed by a dalek and Compact, both in 1964.
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In later years, Alan Wheatley worked mostly on radio, as narrator and poetry-reader as well as actor.
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Alan Wheatley made his final appearance in 1991 in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of A Day by the Sea, with Wendy Hiller and Michael Hordern, both old friends of his.
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Alan Wheatley died of a heart attack in Westminster, London on 30 August 1991, aged 84.