Early life and education , Hertfordshire Hordern was born on 3 October 1911 at
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, third son of Edward Joseph Calveley Hordern, of a family of Hampshire landed gentry with a strong clerical tradition, and Margaret Emily, daughter of mechanical engineer Edward Francis Murray. Edward Hordern's father, Rev. Joseph Calveley Hordern, was the rector at the
Holy Trinity Church in
Bury. As a young man Edward joined the
Royal Indian Marines and gained the rank of lieutenant. During a short break on home-leave he fell in love with Margaret, after they were introduced by one of his brothers. The courtship was brief and the young couple married in
Burma on 28 November 1903. They had their first child, a son, Geoffrey, in 1905, followed by another,
Peter, in 1907. Margaret was descended from
James Murray, an Irish physician whose research into digestion led to his discovery of the stomach aid
milk of magnesia in 1829. The invention earned him a
knighthood and brought the family great wealth. Margaret grew up in England, and attended
St Audries School for Girls in Somerset. Four years after the birth of Peter, a pregnant Margaret returned to England, where Michael Hordern, her third son, was born. Still stationed abroad, Edward was promoted to the rank of
captain, for which he received a good salary. The family lived in comfort, and Margaret employed a
scullery maid, nanny, groundsman, and full-time cook. Margaret left for India to visit her husband in 1916. The trip, although planned only as a short term stay, lasted two years because of the ferocity of the First World War. In her absence, Hordern was sent to
Windlesham House School in Sussex at the age of five. His young age exempted him from full-time studies but he was allowed to partake in extracurricular activities, including swimming, football, rugby and fishing. After a few years, and along with a fellow enthusiast, he set up the "A Acting Association" (AAA), a small theatrical committee, which organised productions on behalf of the school. As well as the organisation of plays, Hordern arranged a regular group of players, himself included, to perform various plays which they wrote, directed, and choreographed themselves. He stayed at Windlesham House for nine years, By the time of his enrolment, his interest in acting had matured. In his 1993 autobiography,
A World Elsewhere, he admitted: "I didn't excel in any area apart from singing; I couldn't read music but I sang quite well." Over the next few years, he took part in
The Mikado as a member of the chorus, and then appeared as the Major-General in
The Pirates of Penzance. It was a period which he later acknowledged as being the start of his career. When the war ended in 1918, Edward, who was by now a port officer in
Calcutta, arranged for Margaret to return to England. With her, she brought home an orphaned baby girl named Jocelyn, whom she adopted. The following year, Edward retired from active service and returned to England, where he relocated his family to
Haywards Heath in Sussex. There, Michael developed a love for fishing, a hobby about which he remained passionate for the rest of his life. In his autobiography Hordern admitted that his family showed no interest in the theatre and that he had not seen his first professional play,
Ever Green, until he was 19. In 1925 Hordern moved to
Dartmoor with his family where they converted a disused barn into a farm house. For Hordern the move was ideal; his love of fishing had become stronger and he was able to explore the remote landscape and its isolated rivers.
Early acting career (1930–39) Theatrical beginnings Hordern left Brighton College in the early 1930s and secured a job as a teaching assistant in a
prep school in
Beaconsfield. He joined an
amateur dramatics company and in his spare time, rehearsed for the company's only play, ''Ritzio's Boots
, which was entered into a British Drama League competition, with Hordern in the title role. The play did well but conceded the prize, a professional production at a leading London theatre, to Not This Man'', a drama written by
Sydney Box. So envious was he of the rival show's success that Hordern supplied a scathing review to
The Welwyn Times calling Box's show a "blasphemous bunk and cheap theatrical claptrap". The comment infuriated Box, who issued the actor with a writ to attend court on a count of
slander. Hordern won the case and left Box liable for the proceeding's expenses. Years later the two men met on a film set where Box, much to Hordern's surprise, thanked him for helping to kick-start his career in film making, as he had received a lot of publicity as a result of the court case. but fell ill with
poliomyelitis and had to leave. Upon his recuperation, he was offered a job as a travelling salesman for the
British Educational Suppliers Association, a family-run business belonging to a former school friend at Windlesham House. In addition to his Shakespearean commitments, Hordern joined the St Pancras People's Theatre, a London-based company partly funded by the theatrical manager
Lilian Baylis. Hordern enjoyed his time there, despite the tiresome commute between Sussex and London, and stayed with the company for five years. By the end of 1936 he had left his sales job in Beaconsfield to pursue a full-time acting career. He moved into a small flat at
Marble Arch and became one of the many jobbing actors eager to make a name for themselves on the London stage.
London debut Hordern's London debut came in January 1937, as an
understudy to
Bernard Lee in the play
Night Sky at the
Savoy Theatre. The part became Hordern's first paid role as an actor for a theatre company. The play was an instant hit and ran at the People's Theatre in
Mile End for two weeks. It also starred the English actor
Stephen Murray in the title role, but he became contractually obliged elsewhere towards the end of the run. This allowed Hordern to take his place for which Daltry paid Hordern an extra £1 a week. After
Othello's closure, Daltry undertook a tour of Scandinavia and the Baltic with two plays, Hordern's first acting role within the company was as Uncle Harry in the play
Someone at the Door. Because of the play's success, Russell
employed him in the same type of role, the monotony of which frustrated the actor who longed to play the
leading man. It was whilst with the Rapier Players that Hordern fell in love with Eve Mortimer, a
juvenile actress who appeared in minor roles in many of Russell's productions. After a brief holiday with Eve in Scotland in 1938, Hordern returned to London, where he appeared in
Quinneys, a radio play broadcast by the
BBC in June of that year. The main part went to
Henry Ainley whom Hordern described as "a great actor, who, sadly, was past his best". By the end of 1938 Hordern's father had sold the family home and had bought a cottage in
Holt, near
Bath, Somerset. The arrangement was convenient for the young actor, who used the premises as a base while he appeared in shows with the Rapier Players. One such piece was an adaption of
Stella Gibbons's
Cold Comfort Farm, which starred
Mabel Constanduros, who had adapted the book with Gibbons's permission. Hordern was cast in the supporting role of Seth, a part he described as being fun to perform. The modernised script was "adored" by the cast, according to Hordern, but loathed by the audience who expected it to be exactly like the book. He was accepted but soon grew frustrated at not being able to conduct any rescues because of the lack of enemy action. He decided that it was "not a very good way to fight the war" and volunteered for the
Royal Navy. While he was waiting to be accepted he and Eve responded to an advertisement in
The Stage for actors in a repertory company in Bath. They were appointed as the company's leading man and lady. Their first and only engagement was in a play entitled
Bats in the Belfry which opened at the city's
Assembly Rooms on 16 October. Hordern's elation at finally becoming a leading man was short-lived when he received his call-up that December. In the interest of helping to boost public morale, Hordern sought permission from the navy to allow him to complete his theatrical commitment in Bath and to appear in his first film, a thriller called
Girl in the News, directed by
Carol Reed; his request was accepted, and he was told to report for duty at Plymouth Barracks in the early months of 1940 when the show had finished and he was free from filming responsibilities. In 1940, after a minor role in
Without the Prince at the Whitehall Theatre, Hordern played the small, uncredited part of a BBC official alongside James Hayter in
Arthur Askey's comedy film
Band Waggon. Soon after, he began his naval gunnery training on board
City of Florence, a
defensively equipped merchant ship (DEMS) which delivered ammunition to the city of
Alexandria for the
Mediterranean Fleet. He found that although his middle class upbringing hindered his ability to make friends on board the ship, it helped with his commanding officers. By 1942 Hordern had been commissioned as an officer and given instruction in
radar and the relaying of its data for the direction of fighter planes. He later said "It was suggested that this would be excellent work for me with my strong actor's voice". After his training at
Yeovilton he was appointed Fighter Direction Officer on board the
aircraft carrier . He was later appointed to the Admiralty to serve in the office of Naval Assistant to the
Second Sea Lord, responsible for appointing Fighter Direction Officers. Also in the office was fellow actor
Kenneth More.
Marriage and post-war years During a short visit to Liverpool in 1943, Hordern proposed to Eve; they married on 27 April of that year with the actor
Cyril Luckham as best man. After the honeymoon, Hordern resumed his duties on
Illustrious while Eve returned to repertory theatre in
Southport. During his time in the Admiralty Hordern and his wife rented a flat in
Elvaston Place in
Kensington, London, and he began to seek work as an actor. After a short while, he was approached by
André Obey who cast him in his first television role, Noah, in a play adapted from the book of the same name. Hordern was apprehensive about performing in the new medium and found the rehearsal and live performance to be exhausting; but he was generously paid, earning £45 () for the entire engagement. Hordern's first role in 1946 came as Torvald Helmar in ''
A Doll's House at the Intimate Theatre in Palmers Green. This was followed by the part of Richard Fenton, a murder victim, in Dear Murderer
which premiered at the Aldwych Theatre on 31 July. The play was a success Dear Murderer
thrilled the critics and Hordern was singled out by one reporter for the Hull Daily Mail'' who thought that the actor brought "sincerity to a difficult role". The following month Eve gave birth to the couple's only child, The play was the first performance by the Covent Garden Opera Company, which later became known as
The Royal Opera. Towards the end of April 1947, Hordern accepted the small part of Captain Hoyle in
Richard Llewellyn's comic drama film
Noose. Two other roles occurred that year: as Maxim de Winter in a television adaption of
Daphne du Maurier's novel
Rebecca, followed by the part of a detective in
Good-Time Girl, alongside
Dennis Price and
Jean Kent. The following year he took part in three plays:
Peter Ustinov's The Indifferent Shepherd, which appeared at the newly opened
Q Theatre in
Brentford, West London;
Ibsen's Ghosts; and an adaptation of
The Wind in the Willows at the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in
Stratford-upon-Avon in which he portrayed the part of the blustery, eccentric
Mr Toad. In early 1949 Hordern appeared as Pascal in the
Michael Redgrave-directed comedy
A Woman in Love, but disliked the experience because of the hostile relationship between Redgrave and the show's star,
Margaret Rawlings. Next, he was engaged in the minor role of Bashford in the critically acclaimed
Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico, a performance which he described as "tense and hyperactive".
1950–1960s Ivanov and ''Saint's Day'' By the 1950s Hordern had come to the notice of many influential directors. In his autobiography, the actor recognised the decade as being an important era of his career. It started with a major role in
Anton Chekhov's Ivanov in 1950. The production took place at the
Arts Theatre in
Cambridge and excited audiences because of its 25-year absence from the English stage. The writer
T. C. Worsley was impressed by Hordern's performance and wrote: "Perhaps an actor with star quality might have imposed on us more successfully than Mr Michael Hordern, and won our sympathy for Ivanov by his own personality. But such a performance would have raised the level of expectation all round. As it is, Mr Hordern is rich in intelligence, sensitivity and grasp, and with very few exceptions, the company give his impressive playing the right kind of support." The title character in
Macbeth, directed by
Alec Clunes, was Hordern's next engagement. Critics wrote of their dislike of Clunes's version, but the theatre reviewer
Audrey Williamson singled out Hordern's performance as being "deeply moving". The dramatist
John Whiting, trying to make a name for himself in the theatre after the war, was called by Clunes to take part in a theatrical competition at the
Arts Theatre in London in 1951, for which he entered his play ''Saint's Day
. Several other amateur directors also competed for the prize, which was to have their play funded and professionally displayed at the Arts. Having seen him perform the previous year, Whiting hired Hordern for the lead role of Paul Southman, a cantankerous old poet who fights off three rebellious army deserters who threaten the tranquillity of his sleepy country village. The play proved popular with audiences, but not so with theatrical commentators. Hordern liked the piece, calling it "bitter and interesting", but the press, who extensively reported on the competition throughout each stage, thought differently and condemned it for winning. This infuriated the actors Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who wrote letters of complaint to the press. The same year, he travelled down to Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, to film Scrooge'', an adaptation of
Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol, in which he played
Marley's ghost. Reviews were mixed with
The New York Times giving it a favourable write-up, while
Time magazine remained ambivalent. The
Aberdeen Evening Express echoed the comments made by an American reviewer by calling
Scrooge a "trenchant and inspiring Christmas show". The author Fred Guida, writing in his book
Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations: A Critical Examination in 2000, thought that Marley's ghost, though a "small but pivotal role", was "brilliantly played" by Hordern. With the first play of the season imminent, the Horderns moved to Stratford and took temporary accommodation at Goldicote House, More praise was received as the season continued; an anonymous theatre reviewer, quoted in Hordern's autobiography, called the actor's portrayal of Menenius Agrippa "a dryly acute study of the 'humorous patrician' and one moreover that can move our compassion in the Volscian cameo", before going on to say "we had felt that it would be long before Alec Guinness's Menenius could be matched. The fact that Michael Hordern's different reading can now stand beside the other does credit to a player who will be a Stratford prize."
The Old Vic , whom Hordern despised as a person but admired as an actor Hordern's contract at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre lasted until mid-1952, and on its expiration, he secured a position within
Michael Benthall's theatrical company at
the Old Vic in London. and opened on 14 September 1953. Hordern called it "the perfect play with which to open the season" as it featured "fine strong parts for everyone and [was] a good showpiece for an actor's latent vanity". Shortly after opening, it was transferred to
Edinburgh, where it took part at the
Fringe before returning to London. For his role of
Polonius, Hordern received mixed reviews, with one critic saying: "He was at his best in his early scenes with Ophelia... but towards the end of the performance he began to obscure less matter with more art". After Edinburgh, Benthall took
Hamlet on a provincial tour and the play had a successful run of 101 performances. On the whole, the actor enjoyed his time in
Hamlet but behind the scenes, relations between him and Burton were strained. Hordern noted his colleague's "likeability, charm and charisma" but thought that Burton had a tendency to get easily "ratty" with him in social situations. Hordern described their working relationship as "love-hate" The lead character initially went to an unknown and inexperienced young actor, but the part was re-cast with Hordern in the role. Hordern described
King John as being "a difficult play in the sense that it has no common purpose or apparent theme". The hectic schedule brought on a bout of exhaustion for which he received medical advice to reduce his workload. Hordern regretted his decision to take part in Roussin's
Nina, but admitted that the allure of appearing alongside Evans had got the better of him. Harrison held auditions to replace his leading lady and settled on the Australian-American actress
Coral Browne. Hordern and Browne grew close, aided by their mutual dislike of their disciplinarian director. They fell in love and had an affair which lasted for the duration of the run. Years later Hordern confessed: "I kept falling in love. It is a common complaint among actors. You cannot be at such close quarters, mind and body, without being sorely tempted." One night, after a performance of
Nina in
Eastbourne, and having felt that he had "acted [his] socks off", Hordern, along with the rest of the cast, were berated by Harrison who accused them of producing a piece "not fit for the end of a pier".
Films and 1950s theatre , one of Hordern's many film co-stars during the 1950s Hordern viewed the 1950s as a good decade to appear in film, although he did not then particularly care for the medium. Writing in 1993 he said: "With cinema one has to leap into battle fully armed. From the start of the film the character has to be pinned down like a butterfly on a board. One does not always get this right, of course, sometimes starting at the beginning of shooting a film on a comedic level that cannot be sustained." He disliked his physical appearance, which he found to be "repulsive", and as a result loathed watching his performances. He preferred radio because the audience only heard his voice, which he then considered his best attribute. Hordern was appearing in three to four films a year by 1953 (including a small part as Jacob Marley's ghost in
Scrooge, the 1951 film adaptation of
Charles Dickens' "
A Christmas Carol"), a count that increased as the decade progressed. In 1956 he took a leading part in
The Spanish Gardener for which he spent many months filming in southern Spain
The New York Times called Hordern's role of the strict and pompous Harrington Brande "an unsympathetic assignment", but thought the actor did "quite well" in his portrayal. By the mid-1950s Hordern's name was becoming one of reliability and good value; as a result, he was offered a clutch of roles. In 1956 he appeared as
Demosthenes in
Alexander the Great, and Commander Lindsay in
The Night My Number Came Up. He appeared in two other films the following year; the medical drama
No Time for Tears, and the thriller ''
Windom's Way''. The Second World War was a popular genre for filmmakers during the 1950s. Hordern said the conflict took up a large part of people's lives; "whether it be one of love, loss, nostalgia or tragedy", everybody, according to the actor, had a story to tell and could relate to the situations that were being depicted before them on screen. including
The Man Who Never Was,
Pacific Destiny,
The Baby and the Battleship, all in 1956, and ''
I Was Monty's Double'' two years later. It was broadcast on television in September, and earned Hordern a
Best Actor Award at the 1958
British Academy Television Awards. The Horderns moved to
Donnington, Berkshire in 1958 where they renovated three cottages into one; the property became the family home and is where Hordern and Eve remained until their deaths. The year 1959 was professionally disastrous for Hordern. He made a return to stage at the Old Vic in
Arthur Wing Pinero's The Magistrate in which he played Mr. Posket. The play was not particularly successful and received mixed reviews: According to the author and theatre critic J. P. Wearing, Hordern was miscast, while a reporter for
The Stage, thought he gave a "convincing portrayal". He received equally critical notices when he took to the stage to play
the title character in
Macbeth, opposite
Beatrix Lehmann. The press wrote of Hordern's "unintended comic interpretation" when characterising the evil king: "Half his time on stage he cringed like an American carpet seller in an ankle-length black dressing gown of fuzzy candlewick" thought one reviewer, who went on to say "he would make a sinister Shylock, a frightening Fagin. But this Thane of Cawdor would be unnerved by Banquo's valet, never mind Banquo's ghost." On 9 October 1959, Hordern made his debut on
Broadway at the
Cort Theatre in
Marcel Aymé's comedy
Moonbirds, alongside the comedian
Wally Cox. The play was a disaster and closed after only two nights and three performances. He was unsure why the play failed, and attributed it to clashes of personality between cast and management.
Cleopatra and the 1960s '' (1963), in which Hordern played the orator and philosopher
Cicero In 1960 Hordern played
Admiral Sir John Tovey in the British war film
Sink the Bismarck!, based on the book
Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by
C. S. Forester and with a plot reminiscent of his naval days. He played the Roman orator
Cicero and was hired on an eight-week contract which due to various setbacks, including cast sickness and adverse weather conditions, was extended to nine months. Much to Hordern's annoyance, the film would require him to work once again with Rex Harrison, who was cast as
Caesar. Despite the animosity between them, they agreed to endure each other's company for the sake of the film. The agreement was short-lived; Harrison made a drunken quip at a cast dinner about
Nina which prompted Hordern to assault him. The incident almost resulted in Hordern's dismissal, but the matter was quickly resolved by producers and the two were kept separate in between filming. In 1993 Hordern claimed the incident had "cleared the air" between them and they eventually became friends.
Khartoum (1966, as
Lord Granville),
How I Won the War (1967),
Where Eagles Dare (1968), and
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969, as
Thomas Boleyn). He was also featured in the Roman
farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1966. Hordern first met the British theatre director
Jonathan Miller in 1968. Miller, who had long been an admirer of Hordern, offered him the part of the agnostic Professor Parkin in his forthcoming television drama "
Whistle and I'll Come to You". Hordern, who had heard positive things of Miller from theatrical friends, likewise thought highly of the director, and was quick to take up location filming in
Norfolk that year. He came to like Miller's way of working, such as having the freedom to improvise instead of adhering to the strict rules of a script; the actor wrote in his autobiography that he had never experienced that degree of professional freedom. The programme was released towards the end of 1968 and was a hit with audiences and critics. Mark Duguid of the
British Film Institute called it "a masterpiece of economical horror that remains every bit as chilling as the day it was first broadcast", while a journalist for
The Telegraph, writing in 2010 about that year's remake starring
John Hurt, reminded readers of the "brilliant Sixties production by Jonathan Miller [in which] Michael Hordern made a fine, crusty Parkin". The year ended with a role in
Peter Hall's production of
Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance at the Aldwych Theatre. The piece received lukewarm reviews, with Hilary Spurling of
The Spectator thinking Hordern was "ill-served" as the principal character, Tobias.
Later career: 1969–1990 King Lear Miller and Hordern's collaboration continued into 1969 with
King Lear at the
Nottingham Playhouse. Hordern immediately accepted the title role but later said that it was a character he never much cared to play. Writing about Miller in his autobiography, Hordern stated: "It was one of the most exhilarating and funny experiences I have had in the theatre." Miller recruited
Frank Middlemass to play the
fool, but contrary to tradition, Miller made the character an intimate of Lear's as opposed to a servant, something which Shakespearean purists found difficult to accept. Miller decided to further defy convention by concentrating on the relationships between the characters rather than adding detail to scenery and costume; he was eager not to use lavish sets and lighting for the fear of detracting from the characterisations and the sentimentality of the storyline. As such, the sets were bleak and the costumes more so; it was a style that was also used when the play was televised by the BBC later that decade. while Eric Shorter thought otherwise, stating "I still do not understand those costumes." Of the performance, the dramatist and critic
Martin Esslin called Hordern's portrayal "a magnificent creation" before going on to say: "Hordern's timing of the silences from which snatches of demented wisdom emerge is masterly and illuminates the subterranean processes of his derangement." Hordern played Lear once more that decade, in 1975, which was televised by the BBC
Jumpers The playwright
Tom Stoppard approached Hordern in 1971 with a view to him playing a leading part in the playwright's new play
Jumpers, a comic satire based around the field of academic philosophy. Hordern was to play George Moore, a bumbling old philosophy professor, who is employed at a modern university and who, throughout the play, is in constant debate with himself over his moral values.
Jumpers was scheduled to appear at the
National Theatre at the start of 1972, but encountered problems when the theatre's director, Laurence Olivier, called the play "unintelligible" before walking out during the first read-through in disgust. Despite this, rehearsals went ahead, which the cast found difficult; the play featured many scenes, a complicated script, and relied heavily on the opening scene, a sceptical speech about the existence of God which lasted 13 minutes. In his autobiography, Hordern commented: "Each day my fists would sink into my cardigan pockets as I tried to make sense of it all." In a meeting shortly before the opening night, Olivier complained to Stoppard that the play was overlong and, in some parts, laborious. Stoppard agreed to reduce the epilogue by half. The decision angered Hordern as it meant the extra stress of learning a new script at short notice. He vented his frustrations on Wood who agreed to leave his character alone and instead to cut many of the other scenes. The actress
Maureen Lipman, who was in the audience on the opening night, said that her husband, the playwright
Jack Rosenthal, had "laughed so hard he thought he was going to be seriously ill". The critic
Michael Billington, writing in
The Guardian, gave a mixed review: "Once or twice one of Stoppard's brightly coloured balls falls to the ground, partly because Michael Hordern's moral philosopher substitutes academic mannerism for apprehension of the argument. But this is not to deny that Hordern's simian habit of scratching his left earlobe with right hand or leaning over his desk as if he is doing intellectual press-ups is very funny to watch or that he is brilliant at displaying cuckolded curiosity." Harold Hobson, the drama critic, thought that failing to enjoy the play was "not actually a criminal offence but it is a sad evidence of illiteracy".
Jumpers won the
Evening Standards Best Play Award which, much to Hordern's amusement, was presented by the philosopher
A. J. Ayer. In 1974, Hordern narrated several other, one-off programmes for the broadcaster, including
The Honest Broker,
The Last Tsar, and
Tell the King the Sky Is Falling. It was a role which the actor found to be too close to his own personality for comfort. His time in the play was marred by personal problems; he and Eve had briefly separated and the actor was forced to rent a small flat in
Sloane Square from the actor
Michael Wilding after being banished from the family home. Hordern and Eve soon reconciled, but it was a time which he was keen to forget, including the play. Critics were complimentary of his performance, with one writing: "
Stripwell's ambiguities are therefore viewed half affectionately and half contemptuously and this comes over well in Michael Hordern's portrayal of bumbling, sometimes endearing ineffectiveness, as skilful and accomplished a performance as one would expect from this actor." The critic John Riley, writing for the British Film Institute, thought that the actor provided "a witty and ironic foil to the characters' helplessness". The same year Hordern was asked to narrate 30 episodes of the children's animation series
Paddington, which was based on the
Paddington Bear book series by
Michael Bond. In his 1993 autobiography, Hordern wrote of his enjoyment at working on
Paddington and that he could not differentiate between his enjoyment in comedy and drama: "it's a bit like difference between roast beef and meringue, both delicious in their way, but there is nothing more satisfying than a thousand people sharing their laughter with you".
Return to Stratford-upon-Avon and Jumpers revival In 1976 Hordern joined the
RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he appeared as Prospero for
Trevor Nunn in
The Tempest, an engagement which the actor found to be unpleasant because of his poor relationship with the show's director,
Clifford Williams. Writing in his 1993 autobiography, Hordern wrote: "Being at Stratford again after all these years was rather like being on a battleship or an aircraft carrier that doesn't often come into harbour. You are at sea for long periods and away from the rest of your service and if the captain of your ship is a good one then the ship is happy; if not, then the commission you serve is very unhappy because you are a long way from land. At Stratford that season I was a long way from land." Later, in 1976, Hordern portrayed the kingly father of the Prince (played by
Richard Chamberlain) in the musical film adaptation of
Cinderella,
The Slipper and the Rose, for which he received a nomination for the
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and returned to the role of George in Stoppard's
Jumpers at the Lyttelton Theatre. The theatre critic Kenneth Hurren "enjoyed it immoderately" and thought the revival revealed a "tidier play than it look[ed]". Hordern compared it to the 1972 version by saying: "It is unquestionably a busy little number, and my first impression of the piece, back in 1972, was that it had more decoration than substance, and that the decoration was more chaotic than coherent." while co-star
Ian Holm, writing years later in his autobiography
Acting My Life, said he thought Hordern interpreted the role "in a grand, rather old fashioned way". Writing in his autobiography in 1993, Hordern said he found the part of Gandalf to be "a bit of a slog". Hordern and Jonathan Miller reprised their collaboration in 1982 with a final performance of
King Lear for the
BBC Television Shakespeare production. The actor considered this version to be his best and attributed its success to the fact he was getting older and therefore able to better understand the character. The author
Joseph Pearce, writing in 2008, claimed that Hordern played the king "straight up with no gloss" and made a "reliable and workmanlike Lear" That year he became popular among children as the voice of Badger in the
ITV film
The Wind in the Willows. He then spent the rest of 1983 appearing as Sir Anthony Absolute in
The Rivals for Peter Wood at the Royal National Theatre and received excellent notices. He was nominated for an award at that year's
Olivier Awards for best comedy performance of the year, but lost out to
Griff Rhys Jones. His success on the stage was tinged with private turmoil; Eve was taken ill after she suffered a
brain haemorrhage, a condition from which she never fully recuperated. She required constant care but recovered enough to become partially self-sufficient. However, in 1986 she had a fatal heart attack at the couple's London flat. Hordern was devastated and became consumed in self-pity, in part because of his guilt at the extramarital affairs he had had with many of his leading ladies during the marriage.
Paradise Postponed and You Never Can Tell In 1986, John Mortimer, a writer whom Hordern respected greatly, engaged the actor in
Paradise Postponed, an eleven-part drama which took a year to make and cost in excess of £6 million. Set in rural England, the saga depicts the struggles within British middle-class society during the post-war years. In his autobiography, Hordern described himself as "a man of prejudice rather than principle" and as such, had very little in common with his character, the left-wing,
Marxist-loving vicar, Simeon Simcox. Despite the political differences, Hordern felt great empathy towards his character, and admired his "plain, straightforward attitude to life, his dottiness, and the way he hung to his faith in a wicked world with a saintliness verging on the simple". Hordern made a return to the London stage in 1987 after a four-year absence. The play in which he starred,
You Never Can Tell, transferred to the
Haymarket Theatre that December having made its debut at the
Theatr Clwyd in Wales earlier that year. It was the second time the actor had appeared in the play, the first being back in Bristol fifty years previously when he starred as the youthful lead, Valentine. This time he was cast as William, the elderly waiter, a part which he considered to be "a real hell to play",
Final years and death By the early 1990s Hordern was concentrating more on television. His roles were mostly those of ageing teachers, bank managers, politicians and clergymen. In 1989 he appeared alongside
John Mills in an adaptation of
Kingsley Amis's Ending Up, a tale about a group of pensioners growing old together in a residential home. After that he took the part of Godfrey Colston in
Memento Mori, a television film about a group of elderly friends succumbing to old age, which was adapted for television from the
Muriel Spark novel of the same name. The film received excellent notices Inside, the college had commissioned the sculptor
Peter Webster to create a bronze bust of the actor which is displayed with a plaque. Hordern's last physical acting role came shortly afterwards as Lord Langland in the comedy film
A Very Open Prison. This was followed by two narration performances, firstly in
Spode A History of Excellence, and then in the five-part film
Dinosaurs and Their Living Relatives. Hordern died of
kidney disease at the
Churchill Hospital,
Oxford, on 2May 1995, aged 83. ==Approach to acting==