John Merivale

John Herman Merivale (1 December 1917 – 6 February 1990) was a Canadian‑born British stage and screen performer whose career spanned more than five decades. Born in Toronto to English actors Philip Merivale and Viva Birkett, he was raised in a theatrical household and later educated at Rugby School and New College, Oxford. His step‑mother, the celebrated actress Gladys Cooper, further immersed him in the dramatic arts, and at the tender age of fifteen he appeared as a newsboy in James Whale’s classic The Invisible Man (1933). By twenty‑one he was understudying in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where he first met Vivien Leigh, a connection that would later become a profound personal bond. Merivale’s early momentum was interrupted by World War II, during which he served as a pilot in both the British and Canadian air forces, a heroic interlude that delayed his artistic pursuits. After the war he returned to the stage, starring in a U.S. revival of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan (1946) and subsequently building a reputation as a reliable supporting actor in films such as A Night to Remember (1958), Circus of Horrors (1960), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) and Arabesque (1966). In addition to his screen work, Merivale remained deeply committed to theatre, appearing in productions like Venus Observed, Anne of the Thousand Days and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and even headlining the Italian horror picture Caltiki – il mostro immortale (1959). His personal life was marked by high‑profile relationships: he married American actress Jan Sterling in 1941 (divorced 1948), lived as Vivien Leigh’s devoted caretaker from 1960 until her death in 1967, and later married British actress Dinah Sheridan in 1986 after a long partnership. Merivale’s career concluded in the late 1980s, and he died in London in 1990 from kidney failure, leaving behind a legacy of versatile performances across stage and screen.