Williams, (George) Emlyn (1905–87), Welsh actor, dramatist, and theatre director, who first appeared on the stage in
Fagan's And So to Bed (1927) in London and New York, and became well known through his roles in two plays by Edgar
Wallace,
On the Spot (1930) and
The Case of the Frightened Lady (1931). He had already written several plays before the long run of
The Late Christopher Bean (1933), his adaptation for London of Sidney
Howard's translation of
Prenez garde à la peinture by René Fauchois. His
Spring 1600 (1934), depicting life backstage in Shakespeare's theatre, failed, but he achieved an enormous success, as both author and actor, with
Night Must Fall (1935), in which he played the homicidal Danny. He repeated it in New York the following year, the only occasion on which he acted there in one of his own plays. He was also at the
Old Vic in 1937 as Angelo in
Measure for Measure, but for the next few years was seen only in his own work. Another failure,
He was Born Gay (1937), was followed by
The Corn is Green (1938; NY, 1940), his best and most popular play, in which he played a young Welsh miner encouraged by a sympathetic teacher to study for university. Later plays included
The Light of Heart (1940; NY, as
Yesterday's Magic, 1942), about an alcoholic actor;
The Wind of Heaven (1945), which postulates Christ's reincarnation as a Welsh boy in a mining village;
Accolade (1950); and
Someone Waiting (1953; NY, 1956). He gave a fine performance as Sir Robert Morton in
Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1946). In 1951 he began a solo performance as Charles
Dickens, becoming famous for his impersonation of the author reading from his own works, touring the world with it and reviving it several times. In 1955 he began another solo performance,
A Boy Growing Up, in which he read from the works of his fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas. It was also given in New York, and later revived in London and 59 American cities. Williams then had a series of good roles in plays by other authors: Hjalmar Ekdal in
Ibsen's The Wild Duck in 1955; Shylock in
The Merchant of Venice and Iago in
Othello at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1956; and the Author in Robert Ardrey's
Shadow of Heroes in 1958. In 1962 he successfully took over the part of Sir Thomas More in
Bolt's A Man for All Seasons in New York, where he also played Pope Pius XII in
Hochhuth's The Deputy in 1964; in the same year his adaptation of Ibsen's
The Master Builder was produced by the
National Theatre company in London. He was in his own adaptation of
Turgenev's A Month in the Country in 1965, took over from
Gielgud in Alan
Bennett's Forty Years On in 1969, and in 1977 gave another solo performance, reading the short stories of Saki ( H. H. Munro).
