Early years Wolfit was born at
New Balderton, near
Newark-on-Trent,
Nottinghamshire, on 20 April 1902, the second son and fourth of five children of William Pearce Woolfitt and his wife Emma,
née Tomlinson. It was a conventional household; Woolfitt senior was an
Anglican churchgoer, a
Conservative supporter and a
Freemason. From his early childhood Wolfit wanted to become an actor, despite his father's disapproval. After education at
Magnus Grammar School in Newark he was briefly a schoolmaster in
Eastbourne before passing an audition for the actor-manager
Charles Doran. Doran's touring company was a training ground for many British actors, including
Ralph Richardson,
Cecil Parker,
Edith Sharpe,
Norman Shelley,
Abraham Sofaer and
FrancisL Sullivan. Wolfit's début role, at the
Theatre Royal, York on 13 September 1920, was Biondello in Doran's production of
The Taming of The Shrew. Between his engagement with Doran and his
West End début in 1924 he toured with the companies of Alexander Marsh and later
Fred Terry. For the rest of his life Wolfit acknowledged his debt to the latter for what he had learnt from him. Wolfit made his London début on 26 November 1924 at the
New Theatre, as Phirous in
Matheson Lang's production of
The Wandering Jew. He appeared in supporting roles in West End productions, and at St George's, Westminster, on 16 April 1928, he married an actress, Chris Frances Castor, with whom he had a daughter Margaret Wolfit, who was also an actress. The marriage lasted until 1933, when the couple divorced. In 1929 Wolfit joined
Lilian Baylis's company at the
Old Vic and played Tybalt in
Romeo and Juliet, Cassius in
Julius Caesar, Touchstone in
As You Like It, Macduff in
Macbeth and Claudius in
Hamlet. Wolfit made himself unpopular with his fellow actors and his contract was not renewed after the first year.
1930s After further West End appearances, Wolfit joined
Sir Barry Jackson's company in 1931 for a six-month tour of Canada. He played Robert Browning in
The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Young Marlowe in
She Stoops to Conquer, Joe Varwell in
Yellow Sands, Coade in
Dear Brutus and Shakespeare in
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Wolfit made a impression in 1933 in the title role of a one-night-only production of
Hamlet at the
Arts Theatre using the
First Quarto text rather than the
First Folio text usually given.
The Daily Telegraph said, Encouraged by this success Wolfit determined to try his hand as an actor-manager. He secured financial backing and staged a week-long drama festival in his native Newark in 1934. He presented
Arms and the Man,
The Master Builder and
Twelfth Night, playing Bluntschli, Solness and Malvolio. Among the actors he engaged were
John Clements,
Elspeth March,
Margaret Rutherford and
Margaret Webster. In the same year, on 15 September, he married Susan Katherine Anthony; they had a son and a daughter. Wolfit joined the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre companies for the festivals of 1936 and 1937, with eight major roles in the first, including Hamlet and five in the second. Another critic wrote, "Mr Wolfit has crowned his season's work with a distinguished performance not unworthy of comparison with the great Hamlets". The director at Stratford was
Ben Iden Payne, whose daughter Rosalind Iden became Wolfit's leading lady. He fell in love with her, left his wife, and lived with Iden, eventually marrying her in 1948.
Second World War At the outbreak of the Second World War, despite strong advice to the contrary, Wolfit refused to cancel his plans for an autumn tour. He told the press, "Here is my national effort at present. They don't want me in the Services yet, so I am endeavouring to carry on with my plans. All my company are waiting to serve when called on". The company played a season in 1940 at the
Kingsway Theatre in London. Later that year Wolfit presented lunch-time
Scenes from Shakespeare at the
Strand Theatre during the Blitz. A German bomb destroyed his scenery and costume store but he continued to tour. In 1944 he visited Egypt for the
Entertainments National Service Association, followed by seasons in Paris and Brussels. After the war he continued his annual tours in Britain and in 1947 he presented two successful tours of Canada, a season in New York and a London season at the
Savoy Theatre.
The Stage said of his performance in
King Lear, "There is no acting in our theatre to-day as magnificent as that of Donald Wolfit when he plays Lear" but his productions had cheap costumes and scenery and his company was below his own standard of acting. Among the audience during this season was the young
Bernard Levin, who later wrote that although "Wolfit and his dreadful company ... horribly travestied Shakespeare" they nevertheless enabled young people to come to know and love the plays and for this Levin held Wolfit's memory in high honour. Levin recalled Wolfit's customary curtain call, "with the old megalomanic, as he thanked the audience, indulging in the same exhausted clutch of the curtain", which
Stephen Potter said he did whether he had been "laying himself out with Lear or trotting through twenty minutes of Touchstone". In 1950 Wolfit was appointed
CBE. In that year
Tyrone Guthrie invited him to return to the Old Vic to play Lear, Timon of Athens, Lord Ogleby in
The Clandestine Marriage and
Christopher Marlowe's
Tamburlaine the Great. He had great success in these roles but according to Harwood he "chafed at performing in a company other than his own and surrounded by excellent supporting actors". He quarrelled with Guthrie and left the company. In 1957 Wolfit announced his retirement as an actor-manager, but after his
knighthood in that year he emerged from retirement and undertook one final tour under his own management. A major role of his later years was the title character of
Henrik Ibsen's
John Gabriel Borkman at the
Duchess Theatre in 1963. One critic said that Wolfit's performance would have pleased Ibsen and deserved to be regarded as the definitive portrayal. Wolfit's last stage appearance was in the musical
Robert and Elizabeth, as the tyrannical Mr Barrett in 1966–67. Wolfit died in the
Royal Masonic Hospital, London, on 17 February 1968 and was buried in St Peter's Church,
Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire. ==Filmography==