Reginald McKern was born 16 March 1920 in Sydney, New South Wales,[1] the son of Vera (née Martin) and Norman Walton McKern. Known as "Leo" from a young age, he attended Sydney Technical High School.[1] On leaving school, he initially worked in a factory, where at the age of 15, he suffered an accident which resulted in the removal of his left eye.[2] He first worked as an engineering apprentice, then as an artist, followed by service as a sapper with the Australian Army's Royal Australian Engineers during World War II.[3] In 1944, in Sydney, he performed in his first stage role.[1]
Career
Theatre
McKern fell in love with Australian actress Jane Holland, moved to the United Kingdom to be with her, and married her in 1946. Despite the difficulties posed by his glass eye and Australian accent, he soon became a regular performer at London's Old Vic theatre and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now the Royal Shakespeare Theatre) in Stratford-upon-Avon.[1]
McKern's most notable Shakespearean role was as Iago in Othello, in 1952.[1] In 1955 he appeared in The Burnt Flower Bed by Ugo Betti directed by Peter Hall at the Arts Theatre Club in London.[1] He played Big Daddy in Peter Hall's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Comedy Theatre in 1958,[1] and went on to play the German ambassador in another Peter Hall production, Brouhaha starring Peter Sellers at the Aldwych Theatre.[1] He originated the role of Common Man in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons in the West End in 1960,[1] but for the show's Broadway production appeared as Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, a role he would reprise for the 1966 film version.[1] He also portrayed Subtle in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist in 1962. In 1965, he played the lead in Bolt's The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, and Disson in Harold Pinter's Tea Party.[1]
Two of McKern's earliest television roles were Sir Roger DeLisle (usurper of the Locksley manor and lands) and Herbert of Doncaster (a corrupt moneylender) in the 1950s black-and-white series The Adventures of Robin Hood.[5]
During the 1960s, he was one of several Number Twos in the TV series The Prisoner.[5] Along with Colin Gordon, McKern was one of only two actors to play Number Two more than once. He first played the character in the episodes "The Chimes of Big Ben" and "Once Upon a Time", and reprised the role in the final episode, "Fall Out".[1] The filming of "Once Upon a Time" was a particularly intense experience for McKern; according to one biographer, the stress caused him to suffer either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack (accounts differ), forcing production to stop for a time.[6]
In 1976, McKern narrated and presented The Battle of the Somme, a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary marking the 60th anniversary of the World War I battle.[7] He played the Earl of Gloucester in Granada Television's production of King Lear (1983). Also in 1983, he starred in episodes of the mini-series Reilly, Ace of Spies as Zaharov, director of Vickers.[5]
Rumpole of the Bailey
In 1975, McKern made his first appearance in the role that would make him a household name as an actor, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in Rumpole of the Bailey, originally an episode of the BBC's Play for Today. A series of the same name, comprising 44 episodes, was produced for ITV between 1978 and 1992. According to Rumpole's creator, author John Mortimer, McKern "not only played the character Rumpole—he added to it, brightened it and brought it fully to life."[8]
Although he enjoyed the role, McKern expressed doubts about its popularity and the extent to which his life was becoming intertwined with Rumpole's. "McKern was often unhappy, decrying his television fame as an 'insatiable monster'. He stressed that his Peer Gynt was a greater performance and lamented: 'If I get an obit in any paper, they will say, "...of course, known to millions as Rumpole."'"[9] In the later series, his daughter Abigail McKern joined the cast as Liz Probert.[9]
Commercial work
Starting in 1985, McKern appeared in a series of advertisements for Lloyds Bank, playing the upholder of quality standards.[10][11] In 1987, investment firm Smith Barney selected McKern to succeed John Houseman as its spokesman. The move was part of a broader shift in their TV commercials, including hiring Dinah Sheridan to play McKern's wife.[12] In 1989, Smith Barney again changed spokesmen, dropping McKern for American actor George C. Scott.[13]
In 1983, McKern was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the performing arts.[14]
He frequently travelled between England and Australia, both to visit family and friends and to appear in various films and plays. As he was frightened of flying, he booked tickets to travel on cargo ships. This gave him time and peace to read scripts and contracts, with the added benefit of feeling he was on holiday.
Worried that his stout frame would not appeal to audiences, McKern suffered from stage fright, which became harder to control with age.[15]
McKern and his wife, fellow Australian actor Jane Holland (A Son Is Born, 1946), had two daughters, Abigail and Harriet.[17]
Suffering in his final years from ill health, McKern moved into a nursing home near Bath in Somerset in 2002, where he died a few weeks later, on 23 July, at the age of 82; his body was cremated at Haycombe Cemetery in Bath.[17]
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