Martyn Green
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Martyn-Green (April 22, 1899 – February 8, 1975), better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.
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[edit] Life and career
[edit] Becoming an actor
Martyn Green was born in London. His father was a singer.[1] He entered the Royal College of Music in 1919 following his discharge from the Army and his service during World War I (he recovered from shrapnel wounds in his left leg). He began to act during his training at the Royal Academy, his first stage appearance being in Nottingham in 1919 in the chorus of A Southern Maid. After leaving the Royal Academy, he first joined a touring company as Paul Petrov in Sybil, where he decided that Martyn Green would be his stage name.
[edit] D'Oyly Carte years
Green joined D'Oyly Carte's "New Company" (a smaller satellite of the main repertory company) in 1922 as a chorus member and occasional principal. His first role was Luiz in The Gondoliers. In July 1923 he was made understudy to Frank Steward, the New Company's principal comic baritone.[1] He soon began to specialise in the patter roles, including the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury, Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, and the Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers, while still playing a number of the other baritone roles with the company.
In 1925, Green was promoted to the main repertory company, becoming the understudy to long-time leading comedian Sir Henry Lytton.[1] He sang the part of Cox in Cox and Box in a 1929 BBC radio broadcast. In 1931, Lytton was injured in a car accident in which D'Oyly Carte principal contralto Bertha Lewis was killed. Green took over Lytton's nine patter roles until Lytton's return.[1] Afterwards, two of the roles – Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance and Robin Oakapple in Ruddigore – were assigned to Green permanently. In 1934, Lytton's retirement left Green as the principal comic baritone for D'Oyly Carte. Green gained notices for, among other things, his excellent diction and comedic stage movement, despite a World War I injury to his left knee.[1] Green appeared in the film version of The Mikado in the role of Ko-Ko in 1938 and finally added John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer to his long list of roles when the company revived that work.
In 1939, the D'Oyly Carte briefly disbanded due to the outbreak of World War II. Green continued acting with other companies and then joined the Royal Air Force, in which he served as an instructor and administrator from 1941 to 1945. Meanwhile, the D'Oyly Carte resumed performing, with Grahame Clifford taking Green's roles. Green returned to the company after the war, and he participated in the earliest D'Oyly Carte LP recordings. For a generation of Gilbert & Sullivan fans, his performances in those recordings were considered definitive. Green left D'Oyly Carte in 1951.
[edit] After D'Oyly Carte
After retiring from the company in August 1951, Green was engaged to appear as George Grossmith in the film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (filmed in the summer of 1952, but released in 1953).[2] He then traveled to America, along with Ella Halman and Radley Flynn, to perform Gilbert and Sullivan for S. M. Chartock. He remained in America, settling in New York City, where he continued his career in musicals, plays, television, recording and films. Apart from his many appearances on Broadway in Gilbert and Sullivan roles up to 1952, his Broadway appearances in the 1950s include Chang in Shangri-La (1956), Lionel Croy in Child of Fortune (1956), and Kreton in A Visit to a Small Planet, by Gore Vidal (1957-58). He also played in a number of TV musicals, such as The Stingiest Man in Town as Bob Cratchit (1956).
In 1959, Green's left leg was crushed in a garage elevator and had to be amputated below the knee. According to Time Magazine, an ambulance intern borrowed a penknife from a police officer to perform the operation. He sued the garage company but the case was dismissed. He was operating the elevator himself because he didn't trust the garage attendants to park his M.G. sports car.[3] Eight months later, equipped with a prosthetic limb, he was performing as W. S. Gilbert in the musical Knights of Song in St. Louis. In 1960 he directed Groucho Marx, Helen Traubel, Stanley Holloway and Robert Rounseville in a Bell Telephone Hour television condensed production of The Mikado. He also continued to perform on Broadway, as Colonel Melkett in Black Comedy (1967), Justinus (the innkeeper) and Chaucer in Canterbury Tales (1969), Colonel Sir Francis Chesney in Charley's Aunt (1970), and Col. Elbourne in The Incomparable Max (1971)
Green also continued frequently to direct and produce Gilbert and Sullivan productions, and worked with various touring companies and in summer stock. His film roles included Finchley in A Lovely Way to Die (1968), and the Captain in The Iceman Cometh (1973, the year he moved to Hollywood). Green's last stage appearance was in Chicago in December 1974 in a play called The Sea. He returned to his Hollywood home and was shortly hospitalized. He died of a blood infection on February 8, 1975.
[edit] Recordings and books
In addition to his D'Oyly Carte recordings, Green made four additional Gilbert and Sullivan recordings: Martyn Green's Gilbert & Sullivan (Columbia, 1953), The Mikado (Allegro-Royale, 1954), Martyn Green Sings the Gilbert & Sullivan Song Book (MGM, 1962), and The Pirates of Penzance (RCA-Victor, 1966). He also did work for radio and television in America including an adaptation of the Major-General's Song for Campbell's Soup.
Green wrote two books: an autobiography, Here's a How-de-do in 1952, and an annotated songbook, Martyn Green's Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan (New York, Simon & Schuster) in 1961. There are two editions of Here's a How-de-do. The American edition (New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 275 pp.) is somewhat more candid and expansive in dealing with D'Oyly Carte personalities and situations than its British counterpart (London, Max Reinhardt, 210 pp.).
He wrote an introduction to Leslie Ayre's 1972 "The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion", in which he noted that the Gilbert and Sullivan operas "have been translated into many languages, including American and Australian...."
[edit] Filmography
- Cyrano (1974) (TV) (voice) .... Comte de Guiche
- The Iceman Cometh (1973) .... Cecil Lewis
- A Lovely Way to Die (1968) .... Finchley
- "The Jackie Gleason Show: Poor People in Paris" .... Major-Domo (1 episode, 1966)
- "The Trials of O'Brien: Notes on a Spanish Prisoner" .... Judge Briscoe (1 episode, 1965)
- "The Defenders: Die Laughing" .... Dr. Fisher (1 episode, 1964)
- "True Story" .... Harry Kent (1 episode, August 15, 1959)
- "Shirley Temple's Storybook: Dick Wittington and His Cat" .... Mr. Fitzwarren (TV movie, 1958)
- Pinocchio (1957) (TV) .... Fox
- "The United States Steel Hour: Who's Earnest?" .... Chasuble (TV movie, 1957)
- "The Alcoa Hour: The Stingiest Man in Town" .... Bob Cratchit (TV movie, 1956)
- "Hallmark Hall of Fame: Alice in Wonderland" .... White Rabbit (TV movie, 1955)
- "The Elgin Hour: The Sting of Death" .... Mr. Hargrove (TV movie, 1955)
- "Producers' Showcase: Black Chiffon" .... (segment Red Peppers) (TV movie, 1954)
- "The Motorola Television Hour" .... Robert (TV movie, 1954)
- "Kraft Television Theatre" (2 TV movies):
- You Touched Me! (1954)
- The Adventures of the Kind Mr. Smith (1953)
- "Studio One: The Gathering Night" (1 episode, 1953)
- "Suspense: The Adventure of the Black Baronet" .... Dr. John H. Watson (Sherlock Holmes's friend) (TV movie, 1953 CBS)
- The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) .... George Grossmith
- The Mikado (1939) .... Ko-Ko
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
- Green, Martyn (1952). Here's a How-de-do. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. American Edition, 275pp.
- Green, Martyn (1952). Here's a How-de-do. London: Max Reinhardt. British Edition, 210pp.
- Green, Martyn (1961). Martyn Green's Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan. New York: Simon & Schuster. (Includes Green's annotations to the libretti of eleven G&S shows as well as his introductions to them and several song selections from each show, often in lower keys than the originals.)
- Martyn Green at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte
[edit] External links
- Martyn Green's Solo Recital Discs at The Gilbert & Sullivan Discography
- Martyn Green at the Internet Movie Database
- Martyn Green at the IBDB database
- Description of 1939 film of The Mikado
