Early years Colbourne was born near
Cuddington, Eddisbury, Cheshire, the youngest of four sons of Henrietta Leonora Colbourne Krabbe and her husband Louis Colbourne, a doctor. He was educated at
Repton School and
Oriel College, Oxford. During the First World War he was commissioned in the 3rd
Royal Berkshire Regiment. In 1919 he was the first post-war president of the
OUDS, directing
Thomas Hardy's
The Dynasts, a vast play with more than a hundred speaking roles. He made his first appearance on the professional stage at the
Kingsway Theatre, London, on 14 September 1920, as the Celestial Policeman in a
melodrama,
The Daisy. At the
Royalty Theatre in November 1920 he played Lord Monkhurst in
Milestones by
Arnold Bennett and
Edward Knoblock. From 1920 to 1923 he played juvenile lead roles with the
Stratford-on-Avon Festival Company and appeared at the Kingsway in February 1922, as the Juvenile Lead in
Six Characters in Search of an Author. In February 1926, at the same theatre, he played the Comte de Guiche in
Cyrano de Bergerac. With Jones, Colbourne returned to London in 1931, and they took over the running of the
Ambassadors Theatre. In their opening production Colbourne directed and took the small role of Prince William in
Robert E. Sherwood's comedy ''The Queen's Husband
, After returning to London the two again presented the play at the New Theatre. They then went to Canada again, touring in two Shaw plays: The Apple Cart
and Too True to Be Good. The partners, returning to London, took the Phoenix Theatre for a not greatly successful season comprising Women Kind'' – a comedy by
Lewis Galantière and
John Houseman – and then Shakespeare's
As You Like It, with Colbourne as Orlando and Jones as Jacques, with
Fabia Drake as Rosalind and
Joyce Carey as Celia. Despite good notices the production did not prosper at the box office: Shakespeare was not popular with West End audiences. In New York in 1934 the partners presented
Women Kind, this time retitled as
And Be My Love, which was even less successful than it had been in London, closing after four nights. They had better results in the US and Canada with
Reunion in Vienna, which toured for three months in 1934. and subsequently on Jones's native
Guernsey, where Colbourne died on 22 September 1965, aged 71. ==Filmography==