Queer Places:
Shepherds Cottage, 18 Shepherd's Hill, Haslemere GU27 2NF, UK
Alan
Norton Fletcher Webb (2 July 1906 – 22 June 1982) was an English stage and film actor.[1]
Noël Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and
lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor
Graham
Payn. Coward's other relationships included the playwright
Keith Winter,
actors Louis Hayward and
Alan Webb, his manager Jack Wilson and the composer
Ned Rorem, who published
details of their relationship in his diaries.
Alan Webb was the son of Major Thomas Francis Albertoni Webb and Lili Fletcher. He was educated at Bramcote School, Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire and RN Colleges Osborne and Dartmouth. He served in the Royal Navy. Webb's early days were spent performing with the Lena Ashwell Players (1924–26), J.B. Fagan's Oxford Players (1926–28), the Croydon Repertory Company (1932–33) and the Old Vic-Sadler's Wells Company (1934–35).[2] In 1936 he starred in Noël Coward's Tonight at 8.30 and directed Coward's Peace In Our Time in 1947.[3] In 1960 he appeared in the role of "Dudard" in Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, directed by Orson Welles and co-starring Laurence Olivier, at the Royal Court Theatre.[4] He appeared in many plays on Broadway, starting with the aforementioned Tonight at 8.30 in 1936 through his final production, I Never Sang for My Father in 1968, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.[5] He made his film debut in Challenge to Lassie (1949), and went on to appear in such films as The Pumpkin Eater (1964), King Rat (1965); Chimes at Midnight (1965), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Women in Love (1969), Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), The Canterbury Tales (1972) and The Duellists (1977).[6] He appeared several times on the BBC Play of the Month, Hallmark Hall of Fame and Play for Today, as well as popular television series Z-Cars, The Protectors, and Public Eye. In 1963, he was offered the role of the First Doctor in the BBC's new science fiction series Doctor Who but declined.[7] Webb was also cast as Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars Return of the Jedi but bowed out due to illness.[8]
My published books:
