Michael Goodliffe

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia   Lawrence Michael Andrew Goodliffe 1 October 1914 20 March 1976 was an English actor best known for playing suave roles such as doctors lawyers and army officers He was also sometimes cast in working class parts Goodliffe was born in Bebington Cheshire now Merseyside the son of a vicar and educated at St Edmunds School Canterbury and Keble College Oxford He started his career in repertory theatre in Liverpool before moving on to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon He joined the British Army at the beginning of World War II and received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in February 1940 He was wounded in the leg and captured at the Battle of Dunkirk Goodliffe was incorrectly listed as killed in action and even had his obituary published in a newspaper He was to spend the rest of the war a prisoner in Germany Whilst in captivity he produced and acted in and in some cases wrote many plays and sketches to entertain fellow prisoners These included two productions of William Shakespeares Hamlet one in Tittmoning and the other in Eichstätt in which he played the title role He also produced the first staging of Noel Cowards Post Mortem at Eichstätt A full photographic record of these productions exists After the war he resumed his professional acting career As well as appearing in the theatre he worked in film and television He appeared in The Wooden Horse in 1950 and in other POW films His best known film was A Night to Remember 1958 in which he played Thomas Andrews builder of the RMS Titanic His best known television series was Sam 197375 in which he played an unemployed Yorkshire miner He also appeared with John Thaw and James Bolam in the 1967 television series Inheritance Suffering from depression Goodliffe had a breakdown in 1976 during the period that he was rehearsing for a revival of Equus He committed suicide a few days later by leaping from a hospital fire escape whilst a patient at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon London Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Goodliffe  licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia