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Max Adrian (1 November 1903 – 19 January 1973) was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In addition to his success as a character actor in classical drama, he was known for his work as a singer and comic actor in revue and musicals, and in one-man shows about George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert and Sullivan, and in cinema and television films, notably Ken Russell's Song of Summer. His voice and acting style were distinctive: The Times referred to his "Osric-like elaborations of... MORE

Max Adrian (1 November 1903 – 19 January 1973) was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In addition to his success as a character actor in classical drama, he was known for his work as a singer and comic actor in revue and musicals, and in one-man shows about George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert and Sullivan, and in cinema and television films, notably Ken Russell's Song of Summer. His voice and acting style were distinctive: The Times referred to his "Osric-like elaborations of manner", and his voice "like no other heard on the English stage of his day, vestigially Irish and harshly attractive." Adrian was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, the son of Edward Norman Cavendish Bor and Mabel Lloyd Thornton. He was educated at the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, whose past pupils also included Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. Adrian began his career as a chorus boy at a silent moving-picture house, coming on as part of the chorus line while the reels were being changed. He made his stage debut in the chorus of Katja the Dancer in 1925. He then toured LESS