Alexander Archdale

Alexander Archdale (26 November 1905 – 13 May 1986) was a British actor.[1] He had a very long career in both the theatre and in film, stretching from the 1930s to the 1980s.[2] He spent the latter part of his life and career in Australia.[3]

Alexander Archdale in 1960's Village of the Damned

He was born Alexander Mervyn Archdale in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India.[3] His younger sister was the educationalist Betty Archdale.[4]

In 1934 he was in a Broadway production of The Wind and the Rain at the Ritz Theatre, New York City.[5]

In 1937 he acted in Jeffrey Dell's play Night Alone at the Embassy Theatre in London, England with Richard Bird, Julian Somers, and Anna Konstam in the cast. In the same year he acted in J. B. Priestley's play Time and the Conways at the Duchess Theatre in London, with Jean Forbes-Robertson, Raymond Huntley, Barbara Everest, Mervyn Johns, Helen Horsey, Eileen Erskine, Wilfred Babbage, Molly Rankin, Rosemary Scott, and Irene Hentschel in the cast.[6]

He appeared in British films of the 1930s and 1940s, for instance Lucky Days and House of Darkness (with a young and as yet undiscovered Laurence Harvey) before going on to appear in TV series such as Ivanhoe, No Hiding Place and Emergency Ward 10.[7]

Later in his career he was a regular on Australian television performing in Hunter, Skippy and Division 4.[8][9]

He was Sir Charles in Newsfront, a 1978 film directed by Phillip Noyce, which tells the story of rival companies making newsreels in the pre-television Australia of the late 1940s and 1950s.[10]

He played the part of retired Professor B. C. Simmonds in the 1981 Australian thriller The Killing of Angel Street, which won an Honourable Mention at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1982.[11][12]

His last credited appearance was in Runaway Island which was set in 1830s Sydney.

He died on 13 May 1986 at the age of 80 in Sydney.[3]