A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Robert Flemyng

Benjamin Arthur Flemyng was born on the 3rd of January 1912 in Liverpool, the son of George Gilbert Flemyng, a physician, and his second wife Rowena Eleanor, née Jacques. He was educated at Haileybury and then was a medical student before abandoning medicine in favour of the theatre. In June 1931, at the age of 19, he made his stage debut, playing Kenneth Raglan in 'Rope' at the County Theatre, Truro and made his first appearance in London at the Westminster Theatre in October 1931, walking on in 'The Anatomist'. During 1932 he toured with Violet Vanbrugh's company before joining the Liverpool Repertory Company at the Liverpool Playhouse where he stayed for three seasons, playing a wide range of roles. While there, he met his future wife, the actress Carmen Sugars, who he married in 1939 and the couple had one daughter. He was still under contract to the Liverpool company when Raymond Massey and Gladys Cooper offered him a major West End role in the comedy 'Worse Things Happen at Sea' where the cast, including Flemyng, were praised by the press. Then he played in four more light comedy roles between September 1935 and March 1936, before his first big success, of which the director Derek Granger wrote: 'At the age of 24 he created the role of the dashing Kit Neilan in Terence Rattigan's 'French Without Tears'. It was a character to which he brought an immediate and distinctive charm in a play which was the perfect vehicle for bringing him to early prominence and he played the role for 18 months. In November 1938 he made his North American debut, playing Tony Fox-Collier in the comedy 'Spring Meeting', in Montreal and the following month in New York, remaining on Broadway to play Makepiece Lovell in 'No Time for Comedy' where his notices were good. The stars of the production were Lawrence Olivier and Katherine Cornell but the reviewer in The Stage said that Flemyng "comes close to walking away with the show".

In September 1939 Robert left the cast and returned to England to volunteer for the Royal Army Service Corps reaching the rank of full colonel. He was awarded the MC (Military Cross) in 1941, mentioned in dispatches (MID), and was awarded the Military Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1944 King's Honours List for his services to the Royal Army. When he returned to the London stage after the Second World War, following appearances in Paris and Broadway, he made another success as the decent, progressive schoolmaster in Warren Chetham Strode's long-running problem play 'The Guinea Pig', about the trials encountered by a working-class boy after being given a place in a conventional public school, reprising the role on film in 1948. Robert then revealed a new, unsuspected, strength when he appeared with Alec Guinness as Edward Chamberlayne, the distraught husband, in T.S. Eliot's poetic drawing-room drama 'The Cocktail Party Party' in 1949 at the Edinburgh Festival and then in London and New York.. He seemed to have acquired a remarkable ability to convey the inner anguish of a troubled man of honour forced to face the consequences of his own emotional failings. This new vein of agonised soul-searching stood him in good stead and led to other roles of similar resonance as when in 1952 he joined Katherine Cornell as her leading man in a long American tour of Somerset Maugham's 'The Constant Wife'. Then again in London, in 1954, when he appeared as the enigmatic general Rupert Forster, on trial for cowardice in John Whiting's 'Marching Song' and notably as James Callifer in Graham Greene's 'The Potting Shed', which he played in New York in 1957 upon his return to Broadway.

With Jessie Matthews in 'Head Over Heels (1937)

Robert also made a great number of films. His first appearance had been opposite Jesse Matthews in 'Head Over Heels' (1937) and also appeared with Jack Warner in 'The Blue Lamp' (1950) and with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in 'Funny Face' (1956). He had leading roles in the war-time spy epic 'The Man Who Never Was' (1955) and also in 'Young Winston' (1972). One memorable role was as a necrophiliac in the film 'The Horrible Dr. Hichcock' (1962). His last film appearance was in a cameo role in Richard Attenborough's 'Shadowlands' (1993), but he was also a familiar figure on the TV screen and created leading roles in such popular long-running series of the 1960s as the BBC's 'Compact' (1962-65) and Granada's 'Family Solicitor' (1961). In 1995 he made the last of his TV appearances, as John Godwin in a five-part adaptation of Joanna Trollope's 'The Choir'. Among his last stage performances was a return to 'The Chalk Garden' (1992), this time playing the Judge, to the Mrs St Maugham of Constance Cummings and the Miss Marigold of Jean Marsh.

Arundel Terrace, Brighton

 
According to a 2003 biography of Alec Guinness, Flemyng, though a devoted family man, was essentially gay, and fell in love in middle age with a younger man, suffering emotional distress that affected his health. The marriage survived, lasting until Carmen Flemyng's death in 1994. This avid Everton FC supporter and aristocratic-looking character actor, had a 60-year long theatrical career and had an instinctive sense of honour and a rigorous sense of duty, working hugely for the cause of his fellow actors. He served for 10 years on the council of Equity, between 1960 and 1976. An indication of his successful career was his property, as he lived between his small house in Clapham and Arundel Terrace in Brighton, the grand five-bedroom property he owned for much of the 20th century. This tall house on the Brighton seafront, luminously awash with marine light, was a refuge of simplicity and tranquillity which reflected the taste of his beautiful Peruvian wife Carmen. Regular visitors to the home included actor Sir Laurence Olivier and American poet and playwright TS Eliot.
On the 21st of March, 1995, he suffered a serious stroke and was for a time comatose. He eventually recovered consciousness, but was incapable of speech and was limited in his movements. He died as a patient in St. Thomas's Hospital in London in the early hours of the 22nd of May, 1995. In its obituary, The Stage, called him "one of this country's most distinguished and respected performers, the last of the great matinee idols."

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/07/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-betty.html