Andrew Faulds | |
---|---|
Born | Andrew Matthew William Faulds 1 March 1923 Isoko, Tanganyika |
Died | 31 May 2000 | (aged 77)
Occupation(s) | Actor, politician |
Years active | 1946–1984 |
Spouse | Bunty Whitfield (1945–2000) |
Andrew Matthew William Faulds (1 March 1923 – 31 May 2000) was a British actor and politician.
Early life
Faulds was born to missionary parents in Isoko, Tanganyika. He married Bunty Whitfield in 1945.[1] During the Second World War he served in both the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm.[2]
After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948. However, he first came to a wider public recognition playing Jet Morgan in Charles Chilton's radio drama Journey into Space on the BBC Light Programme.[3] The series ran between 1953 and 1958.[4]
Career
Actor
In 1959, Faulds and his wife played host to Paul Robeson, who had travelled to Britain to appear at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in Tony Richardson's production of Othello. Robeson had only recently been permitted again to travel abroad, following the revocation of his passport. During this visit, Robeson inspired Faulds to take up political activism.[3]
Faulds maintained his acting career throughout the 1960s and occasionally in the 1970s and became a key part of film director Ken Russell's repertory company, appearing in, among films, Dante's Inferno (TV 1967) (as William Morris), The Devils (1971), Mahler (1974) and Lisztomania (1975). He also appeared in Russell's film The Music Lovers (1970) alongside Glenda Jackson, who like him went on to become a Labour MP.[3]
One of Faulds' best-remembered roles is Phalerus in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), in which he took part in the skeleton fight scene that featured model work by Ray Harryhausen. Another was in "The Radio Ham" (1961), an episode of Hancock, as the unseen voice of 'mayday'.
Politician
Faulds first stood for Parliament as the Labour candidate in the 1963 Stratford by-election, caused by the resignation of John Profumo over a security scandal. He fought the constituency again in the general election the following year, but on both occasions he was defeated by the Conservative future Cabinet minister Angus Maude.
Also in the 1964 general election, the Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, was defeated in racialised campaign in the Smethwick constituency by Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths. Smethwick had become the home of Commonwealth immigrants since the Second World War, and Griffiths' 1964 campaign was incautious. Increasing the Labour vote in the Smethwick constituency for the first time since 1950, Faulds defeated Griffiths in the 1966 general election and became Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency until his retirement in 1997. (The constituency was renamed Warley East in 1974.) Smethwick remained the focus of much racial tension in Britain throughout Faulds' time as an MP, in particular following the "Rivers of Blood" speech by Enoch Powell in 1968 which Faulds characterised as "unchristian ... unprincipled, undemocratic and racialist".[3] Occasionally Faulds has been named as a supporter of capital punishment on the basis of off-the-cuff remarks calling for the hanging of Ian Smith, Prime Minister of the illegitimate Rhodesian government.[3] However, he is listed in Hansard as voting against the restoration of the death penalty in 1969.
He was appointed shadow arts spokesman after Labour's defeat in the 1970 general election, but was sacked by Harold Wilson in December 1973 for "uncomradely behaviour" in accusing Labour Zionists of having divided loyalties.[1][5] Faulds stated that there is a "Zionist propaganda machine" amounting to "a fifth column in every country of the world with a Jewish community".[6] According to Faulds' Daily Telegraph obituary in 2000, the Labour Zionists claim was "a charge the Labour leader correctly believed to be levelled at him".[1]
Faulds had become known for intemperate interventions during parliamentary debates. He verbally abused Norman St John-Stevas in a heated debate in April 1967 over a bill on abortion (which became the Abortion Act 1967), saying that he "has not the capacity to put a bun in anybody's oven".[1][7] In 1978, he was pressured to apologise for calling John Davies, the Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time, a "fat-arsed twit"; ten years later he was scrutinised for calling David Shaw "an honourable shit".[8]
A europhile, Faulds was one of only five Labour MPs to vote for the Third Reading of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 (which gave effect in UK law to the Maastricht Treaty) in 1993. In so doing he defied his party whip, which was to abstain.[9]
Filmography
- The Million Pound Note (1954) – Chief Assistant at Tailor Shop (uncredited)
- Passport to Treason (1955) – Barrett
- Jumping for Joy (1956) – Drunk's Friend (uncredited)
- The One That Got Away (1957) – Lieutenant, Grizedale
- Blind Spot (1958) – Police Inspector
- Blood of the Vampire (1958) – Chief Guard Wetzler
- The Trollenberg Terror (1958) – Brett
- Sea of Sand (1958) – Sgt. Parker
- Danger Within (1959) – Lt. Comdr. 'Dopey' Gibbon, R.N.
- SOS Pacific (1959) – Sea Captain
- The Professionals (1960) – Inspector Rankin
- The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) – Inspector McCulloch
- Once More, with Feeling! (1960) – Interviewer (uncredited)
- Payroll (1961) – Detective Inspector Carberry
- The Hellfire Club (1961) – Lord Netherden
- A Matter of WHO (1961) – Ralph
- What Every Woman Wants (1962) – Derek Chadwick
- Cleopatra (1963) – Canidius
- Jason and the Argonauts (1963) – Phalerus
- Chimes at Midnight (1965) – Westmoreland
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
- The One Eyed Soldiers (1966) – Colonel Ferrer
- The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) – Quaker preacher
- The Music Lovers (1970) – Davidov
- The Devils (1971) – Rangier
- Young Winston (1972) – Mounted Boer
- Mahler (1974) – Doctor on Train
- Lisztomania (1975) – Strauss
Notes
- ^ a b c d "Andrew Faulds". The Daily Telegraph. 2 June 2000. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1341603/Andrew-Faulds.html
- ^ a b c d e White, Michael (1 June 2000). "Obituary: Andrew Faulds". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 May 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2007.
{{cite news}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ Street, Sean (2009). The A to Z of British Radio. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 153.
- ^ Edmunds, June (2000). The Left and Israel: Party-Policy Change and Internal Democracy. Basingstoke & London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 83.
- ^ Vaughan, James R. (21 March 2016). "How the U.K. Labour Party's 'Zionist Problem' Started". Haaretz. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- ^ Perry, Keith (1 June 2000). "Death of former MP who courted trouble". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
- ^ "Andrew Faulds dies aged 77". The Herald. 2 June 2000. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
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suggested) (help) - ^ "Tory MPs in record revolt: Lamont leaves door open for ERM re-entry". The Independent. 21 May 1993.
External links
- Andrew Faulds at IMDb
- Catalogue of the Faulds papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.