Daniel Massey

This incisive character player was the son of acclaimed stage and screen actors Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen and brother of Anna Massey. Always prominently cast and adept at sophisticated roles, Daniel Massey has acted primarily on the stage, but has made fairly regular film and TV appearances since the late 1950s. He first appeared in film at age eight in his godfather Noel Coward's moving tribute to the WWII British military, "In Which We Serve" (1942). Massey proceeded to cut his acting teeth on the British stage and did not return to films for 15 years. His first important film credit was as part of the sterling company enacting John Osborne's blistering play, "The Entertainer" (1960).

Massey began to conquer audiences on the other side of the Atlantic when he played one of the leading roles in the Broadway musical, "She Loves Me" (1963). With his dapper appearance and polished, actorly flair, he again invoked his stage origins in his most acclaimed US film performance, as his own godfather in the otherwise disappointing biopic of Gertrude Lawrence, "Star!" (1968). Massey upstaged Julie Andrews in his carefully realized and slightly parodic rendition of Coward and won himself a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

Subsequent films included biopics ("Mary, Queen of Scots" 1971, "The Incredible Sarah" 1976) and courtroom drama ("Scandal" 1989; "In the Name of the Father," as the prosecuting attorney, 1993). Massey also showed a fondness for old-fashioned entertainment with the fun horror fare of "Vault of Horror" (1973), in which he acted opposite his sister, and the likable remake, "The Cat and the Canary" (1979). His fop was but one memorable item in Nicholas Roeg's obsessive "Bad Timing" (1980).

In between stage work, Massey worked in TV ranging from fine PBS adaptations ("The Roads to Freedom" 1972, "The Golden Bowl" 1973) to offbeat turns in eclectic fare. He played Trotsky in HBO's "Stalin" (1992), romanced Marilu Henner in "Love With a Perfect Stranger" (Showtime, 1986) and was moving as an AIDS sufferer in "Intimate Contact" (HBO, 1987).