Biography
Born on 10 October 1933 in London, England, and passing there on 25 March 1998, Daniel Massey entered a theatrical lineage through his parents, actors Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen, and his sister, performer Anna Massey. His earliest screen appearance came at eight in the 1942 production In Which We Serve, written and directed by his godfather Noël Coward. After completing studies at King’s College, Cambridge, where he received his degree in 1956, he entered professional theatre. His first London appearance arrived the following year in The Happiest Millionaire.
Subsequent West End credits encompassed John Osborne’s The Entertainer in 1960, Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm opposite Claire Bloom in 1977, the 1981 revival of Man And Superman that earned him the Society of West End Theatre Award for Best Actor, the 1987 mounting of Follies alongside Diana Rigg and Julia McKenzie, and the 1995 production of Taking Sides, for which he received the London Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actor in the role of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. He later appeared in the 1996 Broadway transfer of Taking Sides. His initial Broadway engagement had occurred nearly forty years earlier in Small War On Murray Hill, followed by the 1963 musical She Loves Me with Barbara Cook and Jack Cassidy and the 1973 revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Gigi.
On screen he appeared across comedies, courtroom dramas, show-business biographies and horror pictures, among them Girls At Sea in 1958, The Amorous Adventures Of Moll Flanders in 1965, Star! in 1968—where he portrayed Coward and earned an Academy Award nomination together with a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor—Mary, Queen Of Scots in 1971, The Vault Of Horror in 1973, The Incredible Sarah in 1976, The Cat And The Canary in 1979, Bad Timing in 1980, Escape To Victory in 1981, Scandal in 1989 and In The Name Of The Father in 1993. Television work included the British War And Peace in 1972 and, in America, Roads To Freedom the same year, the six-part The Golden Bowl in 1972, Intimate Contact in 1987 again opposite Bloom and winner of the CableACE Award for Best Actor In A Dramatic Special, Love With A Perfect Stranger in 1988 and Stalin in 1992. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in the early 1990s, he died five years later.
Subsequent West End credits encompassed John Osborne’s The Entertainer in 1960, Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm opposite Claire Bloom in 1977, the 1981 revival of Man And Superman that earned him the Society of West End Theatre Award for Best Actor, the 1987 mounting of Follies alongside Diana Rigg and Julia McKenzie, and the 1995 production of Taking Sides, for which he received the London Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actor in the role of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. He later appeared in the 1996 Broadway transfer of Taking Sides. His initial Broadway engagement had occurred nearly forty years earlier in Small War On Murray Hill, followed by the 1963 musical She Loves Me with Barbara Cook and Jack Cassidy and the 1973 revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Gigi.
On screen he appeared across comedies, courtroom dramas, show-business biographies and horror pictures, among them Girls At Sea in 1958, The Amorous Adventures Of Moll Flanders in 1965, Star! in 1968—where he portrayed Coward and earned an Academy Award nomination together with a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor—Mary, Queen Of Scots in 1971, The Vault Of Horror in 1973, The Incredible Sarah in 1976, The Cat And The Canary in 1979, Bad Timing in 1980, Escape To Victory in 1981, Scandal in 1989 and In The Name Of The Father in 1993. Television work included the British War And Peace in 1972 and, in America, Roads To Freedom the same year, the six-part The Golden Bowl in 1972, Intimate Contact in 1987 again opposite Bloom and winner of the CableACE Award for Best Actor In A Dramatic Special, Love With A Perfect Stranger in 1988 and Stalin in 1992. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in the early 1990s, he died five years later.