Early years Ainley was born in
Morley, near
Leeds, on 21 August 1879, the only son and eldest child of Richard Ainley (1851–1919), a textile worker, and his wife, Ada
née Hinchliffe (1850–1928). After education at the church school of St Peter's, Morley, Ainley became a bank clerk in Sheffield, where he took part in amateur dramatics. When the actor-manager
George Alexander was on tour in 1899 in
H. A. Jones's play
The Masqueraders, Ainley obtained his permission to "walk on" (i.e. appear as a non-speaking extra). He made his professional stage début in
F. R. Benson's company as a messenger in
Macbeth. He remained with Benson for two years, making his London début at the
Lyceum Theatre as the Duke of Gloster to Benson's king in
Henry V, in a cast that also featured
Constance Benson,
Leslie Faber,
Harcourt Williams,
Charles Doran and
Oscar Asche. In 1902 Alexander saw Ainley in Benson's production of
The Merchant of Venice and engaged him for the juvenile lead role of Paolo in
Stephen Phillips's
Paolo and Francesca at the
St James's Theatre; this propelled him to stardom. Later roles included
Oliver Cromwell,
Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar and Macbeth himself. He played
Malvolio (1912) and
Leontes under the direction of
Granville-Barker and portrayed
Hamlet several times, including a 1930 production that was chosen for a
Royal Command Performance.
John Gielgud held Ainley in high regard and fulfilled a longstanding ambition to perform with him when Gielgud played
Iago opposite Ainley's
Othello in a 1932 BBC Radio broadcast. But he described Ainley's
Prospero as "disastrous", writing in the
Sunday Times in 1996.
Other roles in the original 1925 cast of
The Moon and Sixpence. Ainley played Robert Waring in
The Shulamite at the
Savoy Theatre in London in 1906. He played Joseph Quinney in
Quinneys on stage in 1915 and
on film in 1919. In 1921 he created the role of John Beal in the original production of
Lord Dunsany's
If at the
Ambassadors Theatre. He appeared in
A. A. Milne's
The Dover Road opposite
Athene Seyler in 1922 and as the Bishop of Chelsea in
Bernard Shaw's Getting Married at the
Haymarket Theatre. In 1929, he played James Fraser in
St. John Ervine's
The First Mrs. Fraser, a role he reprised for the film version in 1932. He also starred in stage and radio productions of
James Elroy Flecker's
Hassan.
Behind the scenes In 1921, Ainley became a member of the council of the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and served as its president from 1931 to 1933. In 1932, Ainley was part of the effort to save the debt-laden
Sadler's Wells theatre. According to a report in
The Times dated 15 March 1932, Ainley considered Sadler's Wells stalwart
Samuel Phelps the "greatest actor of all" and
Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson "the greatest of Hamlets". ==Personal life==