I have been gathering up some of my Roy Marsden files and will give you some
bits and pieces.
He was born June 25, 1941, in London. Married to actress Polly Hemingway.
They two sons, one named Joseph. Marsden attended the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art. He spent four terms there but left after his attempts to
unionize the students were thwarted. After one argument he poured a bottle
of ink down the front of the director's suit. "Two weeks later, he phoned me
up and asked if I'd got a job or an agent," Marsden recalls. "I said no, so
he arranged for me to start work at a theater in Norringham, and who should
be the student assistant manager there but Anthony Hopkins. I persuaded him
to to go RADA."
"Since working with the Royal Sahekspeare Company in the early 1060s,
Marsden has accumulated an extensive list of thaetarical credits that
include everything from Sternheim, Chekhov and Ibsen to contemporary Soviet
playwright Alexander Vampilov. He prefesr the alternative exerimental
theaters of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Birminghamd over London's
commercialized theatre." Some stage appearances: Crispen in The Friends,
1970; Casca and Lucilius in Julius Caesar, 1972; Paul Schippel in Schippel,
1974; Heinrich Krey in The Plulmber's Progress, 1975. For the past two years
he has played Long John Silver in Treasure Island at London's Mermaid
Theatre around Christmas. He also played Henry Higgins in Pygmalion about
two years ago.
A film appearance: The Squeeze, Warner Brothers, 1976. He is also a walk- on
with one line (a Nazi officer) in the classic The Eagle Has Landed.
Television appearances other than Sandbaggers: George Osborne in Masterpiece
Theatre's Vanity Fair, 1972; All the Dalgleish Mystery series on PBS; Arthur
Chipping in Masterpiece Theare's Goodbye Mr. Chips, 1987; John Bennet in
ABC's Inside Story, 1988. Yorkshire Television starred him in "Airline" a
series in which he played Jack Ruskin, a scrappy World War II pilot trying
to start his own post-war airline against establishment oppostion. It also
starred his wife, Polly Hemingway, who was pregnant with their first child
during most of the filming. "It was one of the most enjoyable programs I
ever made," he says, "Learning to fly those old DC-3s was terrific. And I
enjoyed playing Ruskin enormously because he had hope. Of course, he was a
pain up the tushie most of the time, but then you'd see that youthful desire
to actualy get out and triumph against enormous odds. I identified with that
character the most." There has also been guest appearance in The New
Avengers, Space; 1999, Tales of the Unexpected, and he also played a
sinister friar in "The Legend of Robin Hood."
"In his off hours, Marsden specializes in windsufing, sailing, and restoring
a 78-year old fishing ketch. Much of his free time is spent surround by
chidlren--his two sons and their friends."
Hope this will give you some idea of the versatility of the man. I got most
of this information from Anglophile, issue 19, 1991. It is a great little
newsletter packed with information for those of us who love British
entertainment. ( It is $12 for 12 issues, write to The Goody Press, PO Box;
33515, Decatur, GA 30033. Canada may subscribe for $15 and $18 dollars for
other countries.)
Denise Primm
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 13:22:14 -0400
>From: KettrenJ@aol.com
>To: Sandbaggers@skylee.com
>Subject: cast info
>Sender: owner-sandbaggers@skylee.com
>
>Does anyone have any biographical info on Roy Marsden? I really know
>nothing about him. Thanks. Joyce