Lyndon Brook

Early Life and career

Born in York, Brook came from an established acting family. His father, Clive Brook, had been a star of the silent movies and had moved to Hollywood to play quintessential Englishmen in a host of films. Brook’s parents sent their son back to England to be educated at Stowe School and then he gained stage experience at Cambridge University. His elder sister, Faith, was also an actress.

In 1949, he got a minor part in the film Train of Events, which starred Valerie Hobson (the future Mrs John Profumo) and John Clements.

In 1951, Brook was asked by Laurence Olivier to join his company at the St James’s Theatre in Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. The double production was set up to celebrate the Festival of Britain. It was whilst appearing in these productions that he met his future wife, the actress Elizabeth Kentish.

In 1954 Brook played an impressionable navigator opposite Gregory Peck in The Purple Plain. The film was set during the Burma campaign and involved a lengthy trek through the jungle. It enjoyed a huge success at the box office. Two years later, Brook co-starred with Kenneth More in one of the most popular of all Second World War dramas, Reach for the Sky.

He appeared with Michael Hordern and Dirk Bogarde in The Spanish Gardener (1956), and as Richard Wagner opposite Bogarde’s Franz Liszt in Song Without End (1960).

Thereafter, Brook became a regular in many popular television dramas. He appeared in I, Claudius, and made three appearances in The Avengers and The New Avengers. He also played George VI alongside Timothy West’s Winston Churchill in the BBC’s Churchill and the Generals (1979). His later film roles included The Hireling, Plenty and Defence of the Realm in the 70s and 80s.

Brook was a much published author and scripted the 1957 television series Love Her to Death with Peter Wyngarde in the leading role.

Death

He died in London in 2004.