James Laurenson, the actor who has died aged 84, arrived in Britain from his native New Zealand in the early 1960s and enjoyed a varied career in theatre, television and film.
He made his film debut in 1969 with a small role in Ken Russell's Women In Love and his other film roles ranged from Major General Ross in the television series Sharpe to Pink's Father in Alan Parker's Pink Floyd: The Wall.
On stage he played leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater and became a regular in productions of the Peter Hall Company after its formation in 1998. Hall described him as "a great actor because he had that everyman quality. All great actors carry this quality with them: when they take the stage, they do it for us."
In 2011, he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of the Ghost and the Player King in Nicholas Hytner's critically acclaimed production of Hamlet, with one reviewer noting that Laurenson as the Player King, normally a gracefully high-profile role, helped turn "the play-within-a-play into a moving tragedy-within-a-tragedy."
Hytner later forwarded an ecstatic email to the cast that he had received from Stephen Sondheim, mentioning Laurenson's performance: "When I found myself crying in the Ghost scene, I knew something special was happening to me (Mr. Laurenson gets my gold medal)."
In 1970, Laurenson helped make television history in a Prospect Theater Company production of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, while Piers Gaveston consolidated his relationship with Ian McKellen's king in television's first gay kiss. Despite the fact that the BBC Two broadcast took place just three years after the decriminalization of homosexuality, it caused surprisingly little stir.
The production had opened at the Edinburgh Festival in 1969 before moving to the West End, with McKellen recalling that kissing Laurenson (who was not gay) was "a bonus throughout the run".
Meanwhile, Laurenson became a television stalwart. In 1968 he guest-starred in Coronation Street as the Reverend Peter Hope of St Mary's Church. He later played major roles in both State of Play and Spooks, and his numerous British credits include the usual suspects, including the first Inspector Morse drama, "The Dead of Jericho" (1987), as well as Bergerac, Lovejoy, Taggart, Prime Suspect and Midsomer murders. In the US he appeared in Cagney and Lacey and Remington Steele.
His most important small-screen appearance, however, was the title role in Boney (1971-2), an Australian detective series centered on the half-Aboriginal detective inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, created by the novelist Arthur Upfield.
The casting sparked outrage not only because Laurenson, who wore dark makeup for the role, was white, but also because he was Kiwi. However, his performance received admiring reviews, a critic in Australia's The Age opining that his "tall stature and dark, rugged looks... should make him Australia's newest TV sex symbol", while the Sydney Morning Herald predicted that he would have "half the time". women from Australia drooling over their sets".
The series was well received in Britain, where it aired late at night on ITV, although it was not shown in the US because the distributors said the public would not believe in a police officer who did not carry a gun.
James Laurenson was born in Marton on New Zealand's North Island on February 17, 1940. His earliest memory was "seeing a Lockheed Hudson flying over our house and being told my father was in it".
His father was also a keen amateur actor and at Canterbury University College, Christchurch, James was directed by best-selling crime writer Ngaio (later Dame Ngaio) Marsh in several student productions, including the title role in Macbeth. She would dedicate her last novel, Light Thickens, which centered on a stage production of Macbeth, to Laurenson.
Arriving in London in the early 1960s, Laurenson recalled that "the first thing I learned is that it is very difficult to find work and to be offered scripts. You need to have a passion for acting - Hollywood may come knocking, but on the other hand you could spend a lot of time unemployed. However, it soon became clear that this was less of a problem for Laurenson than for others.
In 1974 he played the leading role in the TV film The Prison, based on the novel by Georges Simenon. In 1984 he took on the lead role of Julian Marsh in the West End production of Gower Champion's musical 42nd Street at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane.
He was Vladimir in Peter Hall's production of Waiting For Godot and has appeared in numerous Shakespearean productions on stage and television, including as the Earl of Westmoreland in adaptations of Henry IV parts 1 and 2 in the series The Hollow Crown on BBC Two (2012).
In the late 1990s, Laurenson moved from London to Frome in Somerset and enjoyed some of his busiest years as a regular in the Peter Hall Company's summer festival productions at the Theater Royal, Bath, and on tour.
In 2004, he played Roebuck Ramsden and Statue in Man and Superman, Don Luis in Don Juan and Pope Urban in Galileo's Daughter, and played Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure, the roaring Prime Minister in Shaw's The Apple Cart, among others. , Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's The School for Scandal and Dr. Frobisher, the pompously evasive principal in Rattigan's The Browning Version. He also starred in company productions of As You Like It in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and London.
Laurenson did a lot of radio work, including the role of the Squire of Altarnun in Radio 4's 1991 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn. In 2016, he played the role of royal physician Sir John Weir in the Netflix series The Crown.
Laurenson relaxed, he told the Western Daily Press in 2012, by "walking our dog, Maisie, along the River Mells" and was happiest "hiding away while my lady listened to Oscar Peterson and Dizzie Gillespie perform If I Were a Bell".
His first marriage to actress Carol Macready ended in 1997. He is survived by his second wife, Cari Haysom, and his son Jamie from his first marriage.
James Laurenson, born February 17, 1940, died April 18, 2024
