Millar, Sir Ronald Graeme

Millar, Sir Ronald Graeme (1919– ), English actor and playwright, who made his first appearance on the stage in 1940, and was seen in a number of productions before devoting himself entirely to playwriting. His first play was a thriller, Murder from Memory (1942), and The Other Side (1946) was based on Storm Jameson's novel of the same title. His own play Frieda was also produced in 1946, and was followed by Champagne for Delilah (1949) and Waiting for Gillian (1954), based on Nigel Balchin's novel A Way through the Wood. His first outstanding successes were The Bride and the Bachelor (1956) and its sequel The Bride Comes Back (1960), farces in which Cicely Courtneidge and Robertson Hare appeared. He then dramatized three novels by C. P. Snow, The Affair (1961; NY, 1962), The New Men (1962), and The Masters (1963), featuring academic life in Cambridge, and wrote a musical on the Brownings, Robert and Elizabeth (1964), following it with Number Ten (1967), set in Downing Street with Alastair Sim as the Prime Minister, and They Don't Grow on Trees (1968), a comedy in which Dora Bryan appeared in nine different roles. His Abelard and Heloise (1970; NY, 1971), with Keith Michell and Diana Rigg in the title-roles, had a long run, and he then returned to Snow's novels, adapting In Their Wisdom as The Case in Question (1975). A Coat of Varnish (1982) was another Snow adaptation.