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Obituaries
Michael Balfour (1932-1936)
The career of Michael Balfour, who has died aged 79, took in pre-war Croydon repertory, Albert RN, the Krays, and in 1989, Batman. His vast, expressive face even adorned London bus ads for oranges in the 1980s. And there was clowning, sculpting, running an art gallery in Spain, and the curious case of the American who wasn’t.
At the core of Balfour’s work was his time as one of that company of character actors who defined the style of 1950’s British cinema. Like Alfie Bass or Sidney Tafler, Balfour sketched out comforting certainties from the lower orders. The “Where to guvnor?” cabbie, the petty crook, the “We can take it” serviceman. But like Bass or Tafler, Balfour spun the roles out of the conventional, broke barriers.
He extended that trick to his nationality. He has been labelled an American, and it was suggested that he was a Detroit-born son of vaudvillians, and child actor in Keystone Cops. The reality was a birthplace in Kent, as the second of four sons of an army officer-cum-publican. He was educated in Winchester and Clayesmore before joining Croydon rep.
After service, apparently in RAF air-sea rescue, he returned to the stage and successfully auditioned as the bigshot’s sidekick in Garson Kanin’s play Born Yesterday at the Garrick Theatre in 1947. Its producer was Laurence Olivier - who wanted an American for the part. Thus did Balfour assume a role within a role, and with a long run, found himself confirmed as an American.
That year, too, he made his first film, Just William’s Luck, followed in 1948 by that bizarre and then controversial English pastiche of hard-boiled Hollywood, No Orchids For Miss Blandish. He had the face for a hood, but he was also the trumpeter who gave way to Kay Kendall in the quintessential 1953 film of New Elizabethan England, Genevieve. Other films included The Steel Key (1955), and in 1966, François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451.
The work in the theatre continued, including Detective Story (1950), The Iceman Cometh (1958), and Out of Bounds with Michael Redgrave in 1962. He also edged into television heralded by that crackling mid-1950’s series which opened the era of London-based small screen private eyes, Mark Saber. He continued to work in the medium into the 1980s.
He also worked as a clown in circuses and as “Ancient Hazzard” set up Circus Hazzard with his clown son Perry. Clowns provided the subject matter for some of his sculpture, which also suited the myth of his circus/vaudeville birth, and provided a way out of the alcoholism which had gripped him in the 1970.
Five years ago he was told that cancer had left him with two months to live. He was to have his eye removed but did not complain. Life, he was fond of quoting, was the waiting room of God.
His wife Kathleen Stuart predeceased him; his long time companion has been
Daphne Gooch. He leaves two sons and two step-daughters. Nigel Fountain
Lewis Gilbert writes:
I first encountered Michael in Born Yesterday and in 1951 I cast him in my films Emergency Call and Cosh Boy and the following year in Johnny On The Run. In that film he and Sidney Tafler for once played the (villainous) leads and the film won an award at the Venice Film Festival. Other appearances in my movies included The Good Die Young in 1953 and Alfie in 1964.
But our professional heyday together came in war films like Albert RN, and Reach For The Sky. Nowadays, thank God, the lower classes have a life to tell in British cinema. But four decades ago in this country’s cinema - but not in America - you had to be handsome and of a certain perceived class to be a star, and Michael wasn’t. So he was never the officer, always the private or the corporal. But he was a one-off, the complete professional who was always on time and always knew his lines. And he was the kind of actor who lit up the set, because he exuded fun, humour, good nature.
Yet memories of those times fade before recollection of his more recent battle. When I
went to see him he had very bad facial cancer, but it was the same old Michael, funny,
sweet, with a quite unquenchable spirit. It was as if we were back on the set. But then,
wherever he was, it was fun.
Michael Balfour, actor, born February 11 1918; died October 24, 1997.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Ltd.