John Laurie

John Laurie (born John Paton Laurie on 25 March 1897) was a renowned Scottish actor whose career spanned nearly six decades, beginning on the boards of the Old Vic in 1921 and concluding with a BBC radio comedy in 1979. Born in Dumfries to William Laurie, a tweed‑mill clerk turned hatter, and Jessie Ann Brown, he first attended Dumfries Academy before abandoning a brief stint in architecture to serve with the Honourable Artillery Company during the First World War. After demobilisation he studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, making his stage debut in 1921 and quickly establishing himself as a Shakespearean specialist, with acclaimed performances as Richard III, Othello, Macbeth and, remarkably early in his career, Hamlet at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. His resonant voice and mastery of verse also made him a popular radio performer, notably as John the Baptist in Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Man Born to Be King and as MacDuff in a radio adaptation of Macbeth.

Laurie’s screen career began with Alfred Hitchcock’s Juno and the Paycock (1930) and was catapulted by his role as the crofter in Hitchcock’s classic The 39 Steps (1935). He subsequently appeared in films by David Lean, Michael Powell, and Laurence Olivier, including Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). During WWII he served in the Home Guard, an experience that later informed his most beloved television role as the cantankerous Private Frazer in the beloved sitcom Dad’s Army (1968–1977). He also featured in Hammer’s The Reptile (1966), Disney’s Treasure Island (1950), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1979). Married twice—first to Florence May Saunders (who died in 1926) and later to Oonah Veronica Todd‑Naylor—he fathered a daughter, Veronica, in 1939. Laurie died of emphysema on 23 June 1980 in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire; his ashes were scattered in the English Channel, leaving a legacy of distinguished stage work and memorable screen performances.