Derek Anthony Beckley (7 October 1929 – 19 April 1980)[1] was an English actor.[2] A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Beckley went on to carve out a career on film and television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, often playing villainous roles, as well as being a veteran of numerous stage productions.
Early life
Beckley was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England. He was a child out of wedlock and never met his father. His mother, Beatrice Mitchell, worked as a steward on ocean liners such as the RMS Mauretania and the RMS Aquitania. Due to work commitments, she was often away, and Beckley was brought up mainly by another woman whom he referred to as his aunt.[2]
When he was five years old, Beckley and his mother moved to Portsmouth and when the Second World War broke out he was sent to Winchester, where he attended boarding school at Winton House. It was in Winchester where he first became interested in acting. While his mother wanted him to do "something nice and safe", like working in the civil service, Beckley discovered that acting was what was going to make him happy when he saw a performance in Portsmouth of Emlyn Williams' The Corn is Green by the Court Players, a local repertory company.[2]
Beckley left school at the age of 16 in pursuit of his acting career. He worked as a stage sweeper and tea maker for two or three months, then moved to London. As he could not get work in the theatre, he did odd jobs as a waiter and in an ice cream factory while spending his spare time watching actors like Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Alec Guinness and the Old Vic productions at the New Theatre.[2]
Shortly before turning 18, he joined the Royal Navy and spent two years as a seaman aboard the destroyer HMS Scorpion, where he found the time to prepare for admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).[2] He joined RADA on an ex-Navy grant and during his two-year training befriended people such as actress Sheila Hancock and playwright Charles Laurence.[3]
Career
After graduating from RADA, Beckley started working for various provincial repertory companies, eventually settling with a company near London (Bromley Repertory[4]) which opened up opportunities for television work.[2] After guest roles in popular TV series such as Sergeant Cork, The Saint, Z-Cars and the then revolutionary[5] comedy programme Dig This Rhubarb[6] Beckley made his film debut in 1965 as Ned Poins in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight.
Beckley died six months after the premiere of When a Stranger Calls.[8][9] Just before his death he had been signed for further work in the US. He was supposed to co-star with Elizabeth Montgomery in a television movie titled My Fat Friend and appear in a film, American Dreamer.[10] He was also to appear in the NBC miniseries Beulah Land alongside Lesley Ann Warren, Don Johnson and others.[11]
Though the cause of his death was given as cancer,[12] it appeared rather "mysterious" [3] and according to his friend Sheila Hancock, it may have been AIDS-related, a disease then little understood.[3] Beckley died at the Medical Center of the University of California in Los Angeles[13] and is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Personal life
In an interview in 1979, Beckley stated that there was nothing in his background to explain why he became an actor except for possibly "a desire for some attention, which I really didn't get much as a kid."[2]
While often playing villains and psychopaths on screen, Beckley is described as friendly and funny by people who met him and as someone who could tell a good story.[14] Beckley remarked that he would be surprised if people could find anything psychotic in his behaviour.[2]
For more than 15 years, Beckley was in a relationship with film producer Barry Krost. When Krost opened his own management company, Beckley became his first client.[15] Krost also produced Beckley's last film When a Stranger Calls and was a production associate on The Penthouse.[7]
Although he kept a house in Fulham, London and had three dogs, Beckley spent time living in California during the last year of his life in an apartment in West Hollywood.[2]
^ abcdefghijvan Gelder, Lawrence. 1979. "New Face: Tony Beckley - Genial Film Maniac With English Roots." in New York Times, 19 Oct 1979, Section The Weekend, Page C3
^ abcHancock, Sheila. 2004. The Two of Us – My Life with John Thaw. London: Bloomsbury.
^"Obituaries: Mr Tony Beckley" in The Times, 10 Jun 1980, p. 16.
^"Tony Beckley, Starred In 'Stranger Calls' Film, is Dead". The New York Times. 23 April 1980. p. B14. ISSN0362-4331. Tony Beckley, who played the title role of a killer in "When a Stranger Calls," a commercially successful horror film that was released last year, died of cancer Saturday at the Medical Center of the University of California at Los Angeles.
