British comedian Murray Melvin, who notably starred in Joel Schumacher’s The Phantom of the Opera, in Barry Lyndon, as well as in the Torchwood series died Friday at the age of 90, announced one of his relatives. “It is with great sadness that I must announce the passing of Murray Melvin, actor, director and theater archivist,” director and director Kerry Kyriacos Michael wrote on Twitter on Saturday. Murray Melvin had, according to him, suffered a fall in December, “from which he had never fully recovered”. He died Friday at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
The comedian was a “wonderful villain” in the shoes of Bilis Manger in the series Torchwood, derived from Doctor Who hailed producer Russel Davies on Instagram.
Born on August 10, 1932 in London, Murray Melvin entered his acting career through the theater in the late 1950s. Among his first screen roles, he had the opportunity to appear alongside Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in the first episode of the Bowler Hat and Leather Boots series, in 1961.
The following year, Murray Melvin received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for A Taste of Honey, from British director Tony Richardson. The jury for this 15th edition of the festival had been particularly undecided, since this award was awarded exæquo with three other actors: Dean Stockwell, Jason Robards and Ralph Richardson, all of whom starred in Sidney Lumet’s Long Journey to Night. Murray Melvin, he had not made the trip to France to receive what was to be the only distinction of his career.
His slender face had later caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who found in him his Reverend Samuel Runt, for Barry Lyndon, in 1975. More recently, Murray Melvin had also starred in the film adaptation of The Ghost of the Opera, in 2004. “Success, failure … Oh, I implore you not to be intimidated by these things, he declared in 2016 to the students who had just graduated from the British school of drama Rose Bruford, at Sidcup, near London. They are just society butterflies that pass, and perhaps land, for a moment before flying elsewhere.
