Anthony Bushell

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English actor (1904–1997)

title: "Anthony Bushell" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1904-births", "1997-deaths", "20th-century-english-male-actors", "alumni-of-hertford-college,-oxford", "alumni-of-the-royal-academy-of-dramatic-art", "english-expatriate-male-actors-in-the-united-states", "english-film-directors", "english-male-film-actors", "english-male-stage-actors", "male-actors-from-kent", "people-educated-at-magdalen-college-school,-oxford", "people-from-westerham", "british-army-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "welsh-guards-officers", "actors-from-sevenoaks-district"] description: "English actor (1904–1997)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bushell" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English actor (1904–1997) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameAnthony Bushell
imageAnthony Bushell in The Royal Bed (1931).jpg
captionBushell in The Royal Bed (1931)
birth_nameAnthony Arnatt Bushell
birth_date
birth_placeWesterham, Kent, England
death_date
death_placeOxford, England
occupationActor
years_active1923–1964
spouse{{plainlist
* {{marriageZelma O'Neal
::

| name = Anthony Bushell | image = Anthony Bushell in The Royal Bed (1931).jpg | caption = Bushell in The Royal Bed (1931) | birth_name = Anthony Arnatt Bushell | birth_date = | birth_place = Westerham, Kent, England | death_date = | death_place = Oxford, England | occupation = Actor | years_active = 1923–1964 | spouse = {{plainlist|

Anthony Arnatt Bushell (19 May 1904 – 2 April 1997) was an English film actor and director who appeared in more than 50 films between 1929 and 1961. He played Colonel Breen in the BBC serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59), and also appeared in and directed various British TV series such as Danger Man.

Early life

Bushell was born in Westerham, Kent and was educated at Magdalen College School, and then Hertford College, Oxford, where he was the stroke on the college rowing eight, and belonged to the Hypocrites' Club. After Oxford, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and got his start on stage from Sir Gerald du Maurier, making his theatrical debut in Sardou's Diplomacy at the Adelphi Theatre in 1924.

Career

He worked in the U.S. for a time in 1927–28, touring in Her Cardboard Lover with Jeanne Eagels.

In 1928, he met American actress Zelma O'Neal (1903–1989), who was performing on the London stage in the musical Good News. They married in New York on 22 November 1928, when he was appearing on Broadway in Maugham's The Sacred Flame and she was preparing to open in the musical Follow Thru. George Arliss saw Bushell on Broadway the play and when he was cast as the lead in his first talkie, the American film Disraeli (1929), recommended Bushell for the role of Disraeli's young rival Charles Deeford.

Bushell was cast in another American film Jealousy (1929), but after shooting was completed all his scenes were re-shot with Fredric March at the insistence of the film's star Jeanne Eagels. His other Hollywood films, several of which saw him in the military roles that became his specialty, included Journey's End (1930), Three Faces East (1930) with Erich von Stroheim, Five Star Final (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, Chances (1931) with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Vanity Fair (1932) with Myrna Loy, and A Woman Commands (1932) with Pola Negri in her first sound picture.

In 1930, he and his wife took a delayed honeymoon trip to Germany, France, and England, leaving on the Nieuw Amsterdam in April and returning to New York in July.

Bushell and O'Neal relocated to London in 1932, where she established a second stage career. They divorced in 1935. Following their divorce, they appeared in the same show at least once, though they did not appear together on stage. O'Neal appeared in Swing Along in Manchester and London in 1936. She returned to New York in June 1937.

Bushell remained in England and played more important roles in several films: The Midshipmaid (1932) with Jessie Matthews; Boris Karloff's horror film The Ghoul (1933) where he played the romantic lead; The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) with Leslie Howard; Dark Journey (1937) with Vivien Leigh; and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939) in which the Arsenal football team appeared and played a match against a fictitious team called the "Trojans." Bushell played Trojans start John Doyce who is poisoned during a match. In a sarcastic assessment of the film, which he left after a half-hour, Graham Greene wrote in The Spectator: "I liked particularly the scene when the young Cossack (played by Mr Anthony Bushell with his keen young Oxford accent) bursts into the bedroom of the girl he loves, 'I know it's very late to call but ... O I am glad you are not angry.'" In The Lion Has Wings (1939), a documentary-style anti-German propaganda film, he was cast, in one critic's words, as one of several "idiosyncratic but not over well-known actors" who could stand in for RAF crew members.

On the outbreak of World War II in 1939 he enlisted with the British Army, receiving a commission as an officer in the Welsh Guards. He saw action in the Guards Armoured Division as a tank squadron commander. During the war, he married his second wife, Anne Pearce Serocold, daughter of Brigadier Eric P Serocold and Beatrice Lucy Rice, the daughter of Admiral Ernest Rice,

After the war, he developed a professional relationship with Laurence Olivier, and was the associate producer of Hamlet (1948), and later as associate director on two more films which Olivier both directed and starred in, Richard III (1965) and The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).

Bushell directed for the first time in 1950, using material from an earlier Austrian filmed called Der Engel mit der Posaune, substituting new scenes with British actors where necessary and dubbing minor roles to create an English-language version, The Angel with the Trumpet. Bushell also took the role of Baron Traun, companion to Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria.

Of his direction in partnership with Reginald Beck of The Long Dark Hall (1951), one critic wrote: "The tandem direction is surprisingly able and occasionally inventive."

In the early 1960s, he directed segments of The Valiant Years, a documentary based on the memoirs of Winston Churchill. Though it was a documentary, and BBC's rules then forbade their programmes featuring re-enactments, Bushell appeared in one scene as an RAF air marshal deriding British attempts to sway German public opinion by dropping leaflets on their cities early in World War II. He was filling in for Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris and speaking Harris' words only because illness prevented Harris from participating on the day scheduled for filming.

Final years

Bushell retired in 1964, and he later served as director of the Monte Carlo Golf Club. He died in Oxford on 2 April 1997. He was 92.

Partial filmography

Actor

Director

;Film

;Television

References

References

  1. (30 March 1930). "'Journey's End'". New York Times.
  2. Vallance, Tom. (17 April 1997). "Obituary: Anthony Bushell". independent.co.uk.
  3. (8 January 1928). "Way Down East". New York Times.
  4. (22 November 1928). "Zelma O'Neal to Marry". New York Times.
  5. (23 November 1928). "Zelma O'Neal Marries". New York Times.
  6. Mell, Ella. (2005). "Casting Might-Have-Beens: A Film by Film Directory". McFarland & Company.
  7. (6 July 1930). "Four Ships Sail Today; One Liner Coming In". New York Times.
  8. (4 April 1930). "Bushell and Bride Back". New York Times.
  9. (1936). "Picture Show Annual". Amalgamated Press.
  10. Loew, Thomas Alfred. (1937). "We All Go to the Pictures". W. Hodge.
  11. (16 August 1936). "The London Wireless". New York Times.
  12. (28 June 1937). "Ocean Travelers". New York Times.
  13. (2013). "Patricia Roc: The Goddess of the Odeons". AuthorHouse.
  14. (1993). "The Graham Greene Film Reader: Reviews, Essays, Interviews & Film Stories". Carcanet Press Ltd..
  15. (2000). "British Cinema and the Second World War". Continuum.
  16. (2006). "America's Best, Britain's Finest: A Survey of Mixed Movies". Lulu.com.
  17. (6 November 2005). "These Movies Won No Hollywood Awards". LuLu Press.
  18. (30 December 1999). "Jack Le Vien". The Guardian.

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1904-births1997-deaths20th-century-english-male-actorsalumni-of-hertford-college,-oxfordalumni-of-the-royal-academy-of-dramatic-artenglish-expatriate-male-actors-in-the-united-statesenglish-film-directorsenglish-male-film-actorsenglish-male-stage-actorsmale-actors-from-kentpeople-educated-at-magdalen-college-school,-oxfordpeople-from-westerhambritish-army-personnel-of-world-war-iiwelsh-guards-officersactors-from-sevenoaks-district