Daniel Massey

b. 10 October 1933, London, England, d. 25 March 1998, London, England. Born into a theatrical environment (parents Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen and sister Anna Massey all respected actors), Daniel made his film debut at the age of eight in In Which We Serve (1942), which was directed by and starred his godfather, Noël Coward. Educated at King’s College, Cambridge, from where he graduated in 1956, he followed in the family tradition and went into the theatre. He made his London debut in The Happiest Millionaire (1957). Other London stage work included John Osborne’s The Entertainer (1960), Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (1977), opposite Claire Bloom, a revival of Man And Superman (1981, winning a Society of West End Theatre (SWET) Award as Best Actor), Follies (1987, co-starring with Diana Rigg and Julia McKenzie), and Taking Sides (1995, winning the London Critics’ Circle Award as Best Actor for his role of German orchestral conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler). Massey was also in the 1996 Broadway production of Taking Sides. He had made his Broadway debut more than three decades earlier in Small War On Murray Hill (1957) and was in the musical, She Loves Me (1963), with Barbara Cook and Jack Cassidy. He was also on Broadway in the 1973 revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical, Gigi.


On screen Massey made comedies, courtroom dramas, showbusiness biopics and horror films: Girls At Sea (1958), The Amorous Adventures Of Moll Flanders (1965), Star! (1968, in which he portrayed Coward and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe in the same category), Mary, Queen Of Scots (1971), The Vault Of Horror (1973), The Incredible Sarah (1976), The Cat And The Canary (1979), Bad Timing (1980), Escape To Victory (1981), Scandal (1989), and In The Name Of The Father (1993). His television films included, in the UK, War And Peace (1972) and in the USA, Roads To Freedom (1972), The Golden Bowl (1972, a six-part mini-series), Intimate Contact (1987, with Bloom again, for which he won the CableACE Award for Best Actor In A Dramatic Special), Love With A Perfect Stranger (1988), and Stalin (1992). In the early 90s, Massey was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. He passed away in 1998.