Clunes, Alec Sheriff de Moro

Clunes, Alec Sheriff de Moro [ Alexander Sheriff de Moro Clunes] (1912–70), English actor, director, and theatre manager. Both his parents were on the stage, and after considerable experience as an amateur he joined Ben Greet's company in 1934, and was then at the Old Vic, where he played a wide variety of parts, and at the Malvern Festival, later appearing in London in Shaw's In Good King Charles's Golden Days. In 1942 he took over the Arts Theatre in London where he remained until 1950, producing or directing numerous plays in many of which he appeared himself, playing Macbeth in the 100th production. Beginning with a revival of Odets's Awake and Sing, the productions included revivals of English classics, such as Farquhar's The Constant Couple, and new plays, among them Christopher Fry's The Lady's not for Burning (1948) in which he created the part of Thomas Mendip. His chief roles after leaving the Arts were Claudius to the Hamlet of Paul Scofield (1955), Caliban in The Tempest at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (1957), Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady (1959), and the Bishop of Chichester in Hochhuth's Soldiers (1968), his final appearance.