40 Facts About Nicholas Amer

Thomas Harold Amer, known professionally as Nicholas Amer, was an English stage, film and television actor known for his performances in William Shakespeare's plays.

Nicholas Amer served for five years during World War II in the Royal Navy as a wireless operator aboard Motor Torpedo Boats, first in North Africa, then in the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was wounded in action.

Nicholas Amer adopted the stage name Nicholas Amer and joined the Liverpool Playhouse under John Fernald.

Nicholas Amer wrote numerous ballet and opera reviews for The Stage under his own name and under the pseudonym 'Kenneth Smart' and appeared in numerous TV commercials.

Nicholas Amer was born on 29 September 1923 in Tranmere, Birkenhead, into a working class background.

Nicholas Amer's father, Thomas Amer, was a bedroom steward aboard the Cunard liner RMS Laconia, and his mother, Margaret, had worked for Lever Brothers in their soap factory.

Nicholas Amer was christened Thomas Harold Amer in St Luke's Church of England Church in Tranmere and thereafter called Harold by his parents, brother and two sisters.

Nicholas Amer's father was hospitalised after a street accident the same year, forcing the 14-year-old Harold to leave school, get a job and take on some of the family responsibilities.

Nicholas Amer first served with a flotilla of Motor Torpedo Boats based at Weymouth in Dorset.

In July 1943 the Allied Forces invaded Sicily and Nicholas Amer took part in the invasion and those of southern France and Greece.

Demobilised in 1945, Nicholas Amer returned to the Liverpool Playhouse and asked the stage door keeper for advice.

Nicholas Amer learned a soliloquy from Richard II, took the train to London, did the audition and was accepted.

Nicholas Amer was essentially a 'character' actor rather than a leading man.

Nicholas Amer was forced to sign on twice a week at the Labour Exchange and to find cheaper 'digs' in which to stay.

Again out of work following the end of the tour, Nicholas Amer worked at various times as a Christmas postman, a waiter at a holiday camp on the Isle of Wight, and a night-shift worker at Wall's ice cream factory.

Nicholas Amer accepted an offer from Guildford Rep for a contract to share the task of playing leading roles in a different play each week with Edward Woodward.

Nicholas Amer auditioned and was offered the role of Green in Gielgud's production of Richard II, which would star Paul Scofield alongside Eileen Herlie, Pamela Brown, Eric Porter, Noel Willman and Herbert Lomas.

In 1955, when Regent's Park Open Air Theatre offered him the chance to play Ferdinand in The Tempest, Nicholas Amer persuaded Benthall to release him.

Nicholas Amer performed Shakespeare live on TV, including playing Sebastian in BBC Sunday Night Theatre's Twelfth Night with Dilys Hamlett as Viola in a production by Michael Elliott and Caspar Wrede.

Nicholas Amer showed his versatility by appearing in the 1958 musical Keep Your Hair On at the Apollo Theatre in London, directed by John Cranko and with settings and costumes designed by Tony Armstrong-Jones and Desmond Heeley.

Nicholas Amer was 35 years old, but looked ten years younger.

On 1 July 1963, the then four members of Voyage Theatre, Harold Lang, Greville Hallam, Ralph Gruskin and Nicholas Amer, arrived in Jamaica.

On 2 March 1964, Nicholas Amer arrived with his three fellow actors in Australia.

Nicholas Amer would do the poems of John Donne, Hallam those of William Blake and Lang would do the poems of John Milton.

Nicholas Amer was the last surviving member of the original four actors who made up Voyage Theatre.

Nicholas Amer played Ross in Macbeth and understudied Macbeth himself in a regional tour to Brighton and Cardiff.

Nicholas Amer played the part of Otto alongside Mark Wynter in the musical Hans Andersen directed by Val May at Guildford Rep in 1986, followed by Shaw's Candida at the King's Head Theatre in Islington.

Nicholas Amer then appeared as Chaim Levi in Ron Elisha's Two opposite Amanda Boxer at the Roundhouse Downstairs, Chalk Farm in 1987.

Nicholas Amer acted as voice coach to Behrouz Vossoughi, the leading Iranian actor at the time and playing opposite Quinn, in Caravans and travelled to Spain to play one of the Three Wise Men in The Nativity for 20th Century Fox.

Nicholas Amer appeared as Mr Heinrichson in the short film Benjamin's Struggle in 2005, followed by the role of Mr Archibald in the short comedy film Waiting for Gorgo in 2009.

Nicholas Amer had a part written specially for him by film director Terence Davies and played the elderly, ailing Mr Elton in The Deep Blue Sea, which starred Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston.

Nicholas Amer appeared in the TV play Arrow in the Air by Henry Brinton and Kenneth Robinson, directed by Robert Tronson for Associated-Rediffusion, and in the 1959 children's science fiction series The Red Grass, for AR-TV.

In 1999 Nicholas Amer played the part of Old Thorny in the Jacobean play The Witch of Edmonton for the Open University, directed by Jenny Bardwell, and some years later played Pop in the radio play A Walk to the Paradise Garden by Terence Davies for BBC Radio 3.

Nicholas Amer directed Thom Delaney's one man show The Importance of Being Irish at the Roundhouse Downstairs in Chalk Farm, London.

Nicholas Amer directed The Sea Pearls black theatre company in The Unfaithful Woman by Sam Mangwane.

Nicholas Amer began teaching in 1960 at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then at the Webber Douglas Drama School.

Nicholas Amer taught at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and later at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia.

Marriage and family life had never been an option as Nicholas Amer believed that it would kill his dream of devoting his life to Shakespeare.

In 1965, after his second overseas tour, Nicholas Amer went to the Old Vic to see the Berliner Ensemble perform The Little Mahagonny.

Nicholas Amer regarded acting as the most glorious job any servant of the public could aspire to, and he wanted to devote himself to it.