Lionel Jeffries (1926 - 2010)

After service in World War II, Jeffries attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In 1950 he made his screen debut in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, but it was comedy where Jeffries made his career.

Bald from an young age and with a heavy moustache he often played characters older than himself, such as the father of Dick Van Dyke, in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries was actually six months younger than Van Dyke.

His characteristic presence made him an rememberable actor, even in smaller roles. After leading roles in Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967), Jeffries started a small directing career in the 70’s. Most notable results were The Railway Children and The Amazing Mr Blunden.

Jeffries died 9 years after his retirement from acting in 2001 in a nursing home in Poole on 19 February 2010.

Obituaries

Rainer Heinz, Lionel Jeffries, in: Filmdienst, nr. 8, 2010 pp. 18

Films

1950
Stage Fright

1955
The Quatermass Xperiment
The Colditz Story
All for Mary

1956
Lust for Life
Bhowani Junction
The Baby and the Battleship
Eyewitness

1957
Doctor at Large
The Vicious Circle
The Man in the Sky
Barnacle Bill

1958
Behind the Mask
Dunkirk
Up the Creek
Nowhere to Go
The Revenge of Frankenstein
Further Up the Creek
Orders to Kill

1959
The Nun's Story
Please Turn Over
Idol on Parade
Bobbikins

1960
Two Way Stretch
Tarzan the Magnificent
The Trials of Oscar Wilde

1961
Fanny

1962
The Notorious Landlady

1963
Call Me Bwana
The Wrong Arm of the Law
The Scarlet Blade

1964
The Long Ships
Murder Ahoy
First Men in the Moon

1965
The Truth About Spring

1966
Drop Dead Darling

1967
Camelot

1968
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

1970
The Railway Children

1972
The Amazing Mr. Blunden
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

1973
Baxter!

1975
Royal Flash

1978
The Water Babies

1979
The Prisoner of Zenda

1989
A Chorus of Disapproval

IMDb: 0420383