Rix, Brian Norman Roger

Rix, Brian Norman Roger (1924– ), English actor and manager, who made his first appearance on the stage in 1942 and a year later was seen in London with Donald Wolfit's company in Twelfth Night. He served with the RAF, 1944–7, and on demobilization formed two repertory companies. He had his first outstanding success with Colin Morris's farce Reluctant Heroes (1950), which he presented on tour and then took to the Whitehall Theatre in London, where it ran for nearly four years with himself as Gregory. It was succeeded by four more highly successful farces which he presented at the same theatre, appearing in them all himself: John Chapman's Dry Rot (1954) and Simple Spymen (1958); Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton's One for the Pot (1961); and Ray Cooney's Chase Me, Comrade (1964). The combined runs of these easily exceeded the record previously held by the Aldwych Theatre of 10 years' continuous presentation of farce by one manager in the same theatre. In 1967 Rix moved to the Garrick, where he presented and starred in a repertory of Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton's Stand by Your Bedouin, Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot's Uproar in the House, and Harold Brooke and Kay Bannerman's Let Sleeping Wives Lie, the last eventually running on its own and being followed by Michael Pertwee's She's Done It Again! (1969) and Don't Just Lie There, Say Something (1971). He returned in 1976 to the Whitehall to co-present and star in Fringe Benefits by Peter Yeldham and Donald Churchill. He left the theatre in 1980 to work full time with a charity for the mentally handicapped, being created a peer in 1992 for his work in this field.