Henry Wilcoxon (born Harry Frederick Wilcoxon; 8 September 1905 – 6 March 1984) was a British-American actor and film producer, born in the British West Indies. He was best known as part of the stock company of director Cecil B. DeMille, playing both leading men and supporting roles, and also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.
Early life Wilcoxon was born on 8 September 1905 in Roseau, Dominica (then administered as part of the British Leeward Islands). His English-born father was Robert Stanley 'Tan' Wilcoxon, manager of the Colonial Bank in JamaicaThe deMercado Family Website "Monthly Comments: Jamaica" Vol. 6 – 'Memories and Reflections,' by Ansell Hart . Retrieved 7 August 2008 and his mother, Lurline Mignonette Nunes, was a Jamaican amateur theatre actress, descendant of a wealthy Spanish merchant family.Daynard, Don Henry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain_George's_Whizzbang No. 13 (1971), pp. 2–7"BMD records". Retrieved 7 August 2008
Henry was close with his older brother, Robert Owen Wilcoxon, known as 'Owen'. Henry (known then by his born name, Harry) had a difficult childhood. His mother "disappeared suddenly and mysteriously" (presumably she died) when he was about a year old, and his father took him and Owen (aged four) to England with the intention that his own mother, Ann Wilcoxon, would care for them. But because the grandmother was too frail to care for the children, they were first sent to a bad foster home, where they became ill from malnutrition and neglect until this was discovered by the authorities, and they were moved to an orphanage. Harry suffered from rickets, and Owen developed a stutter and had epileptic fits.Lionheart in Hollywood, Prologue p.xv: "Tan advertised for a foster home and the brothers were sent to the first family that responded. There Harry and Owen were locked in an attic room and fed leftovers while the money and clothing that came with them went to the family's own children. Harry and Owen were kept in appalling conditions, both afflicted with lice, Harry crippled with rickets and Owen developed a lifelong stutter and epileptic fits. They were rescued from the orphanage to a new foster home run by the more caring Stewart family, at Springfield House in Acton, London.Lionheart in Hollywood, Prologue p.xvi: "Even when the abuse was discovered, neither father nor grandmother wanted to take them back; instead the boys were sent to an orphanage and might have remained there if a good foster home not heard of their plight and considered taking them in. The Stewart family (consisting mainly of maiden sisters), with a large house in Acton, accepted the abandoned children. The youngest, Ruth, took special care of Owen. Harry had atrocious behaviour but was taken in hand by an elder sister Sara. The boys had to call each sister "Auntie", were taught table manners, sent to Sunday school, tutored in school work and Harry's legs fitted with braces.The 1911 census shows Harry and Owen Wilcoxon with the Stewart family at Springfield House, Horn Lane, Acton. They are Charlotte Stewart (age 80) and single daughters Harriet (49), Caroline (48), Sara (39), Kathleen (37) and Ruth (34). Also a son John (41) with his wife Florence (33). The house had 18 rooms.
After several years Tan Wilcoxon, with his new wife Rosamond, took the children home with them to Bridgetown, Barbados, where they were educated. Harry was sent to Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston, Jamaica and Harrison College, Barbados. Harry later claimed that at 14 he was 'almost' the underwater swimming champion of BarbadosLionheart in Hollywood, p.29, p.86. Twice in the biography Henry is quoted as saying he was almost the underwater swimming champion of Barbados. and good enough to become a salvage diver. He was also an avid amateur boxer, earning him and his brother Owen the nicknames 'Biff' and 'Bang'.
Acting After completing his education, Wilcoxon moved to London, where he was employed by Joseph Rank, the father of J. Arthur Rank, before working for Bond Street tailors Pope and Bradshaw. While working for the tailors, Wilcoxon applied for a visa to work as a chauffeur in the United States, but upon seeing his application refused, returned to boxing, and then to acting.
Stage Harry Wilcoxon's first stage performance was as a supporting actor in an adaptation of the novel The 100th Chance, by Ethel M. Dell, in November 1927 at Blackpool,The Stage, 3 November 1927 before he joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre the next year and toured "for several years" playing "all roles that came his way." Among these roles, he found critical success playing Captain Cook in a production of Rudolph Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the London Queen's Theatre alongside Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Scott Sunderland and Cedric Hardwicke. In June 1932, at the Queen's Theatre, he played Donald Gage alongside Edith Evans as Irela in Sir Barry Jackson's production of Beverley Nichols' novel Evensong.The Stage, 30 June 1932
Early screen work
In 1931, Wilcoxon made his screen debut as "Larry Tindale" in The Perfect Lady, followed by a role opposite Heather Angel in Self Made Lady, alongside Louis Hayward and others. In 1932, he appeared in a remake of the 1929 film The Flying Squad (based on the novel by Edgar Wallace), reprising the role originated by future-Hitchcock regular John Longden. Altogether he made eight films in Britain prior to 1934.
Also in 1933, "while acting on stage in Eight Bells, a talent scout for Paramount Pictures reportedly arranged a screen test which came to the attention of producer-director Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood." DeMille recalls in his autobiography:
So he was renamed by DeMille for the role of Marc Antony in Cleopatra, and from then on he was Henry Wilcoxon.
Wilcoxon was next given the lead role of Richard the Lionheart in DeMille's big-budget film The Crusades (1935) opposite Loretta Young. That film, however, was a financial failure, "losing more than $700,000". After the lack of success of The Crusades, Wilcoxon's career stalled; although he featured—and starred—in a number of films, most were "minor B's like The President's Mystery and Prison Nurse for Republic [Pictures]." Wilcoxon himself deemed his worst acting job to be in Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938), in which year he played in If I Were King and featured in Five of a Kind with the Dionne quintuplets.
The war years In 1941, Wilcoxon appeared as Captain Hardy, alongside Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, in Alexander Korda's Lady Hamilton, during the filming of which:
a wad of flame fell from a torch directly on Olivier's head, setting his wig afire. Wilcoxon, standing right beside him, tried to extinguish the blaze but was unsuccessful. Finally he had to wrench the wig from Olivier's head, but both of his hands were badly burned while Olivier's eyebrows were scorched."
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, Wilcoxon enlisted in the United States Coast Guard, supposedly "leaving his home 20 minutes after the announcement that the U.S. had declared war and proceeding to enlist then and there." He served with the Coast Guard until 1946, gaining the rank of lieutenant commander.
During his period of service, three films in which he appeared were released in 1942, among them Mrs. Miniver,His role in "Mrs. Miniver" must have had special meaning to Henry because his only brother, Sub-Lieutenant Robert Owen Wilcoxon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, had been killed by a German bomb when assisting in the Dunkirk evacuation on 29 May 1940. which received considerable public acclaim, as well as six Academy Awards. Wilcoxon, in his role as the vicar, "wrote and re-wrote" the key sermon with director William Wyler "the night before the sequence was to be shot." The speech "made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory."
Upon his return from war service, Wilcoxon "picked up his relationship with Cecil B. DeMille" with Unconquered, and after starring as Sir Lancelot in the 1949 musical version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (with Bing Crosby in the title role), he featured (with "fifth starring billing") in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). To help pre-sell the film, "DeMille arranged for Wilcoxon to tour the country giving a series of lectures on the film and its research in 41 key cities in the United States and Canada." However, "after the fourteenth city," Wilcoxon collapsed "from a mild bout of pneumonia," (actually tuberculosis), and the tour was continued by "press-agent Richard Condon and Ringling Brothers public relations man Frank Braden" (who also collapsed, in Minneapolis). Condon finished touring by the time of the film's release in October 1949. Wilcoxon, meanwhile, had returned to England under contract to feature in The Miniver Story (1950), a sequel to the multi-Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) in which he reprised his role as the vicar.
Later life as producer and TV actor In the late 1940s, "several young actors and actresses came to Wilcoxon and wife Joan Woodbury and asked them to form a play-reading group", which began to take shape as the 'Wilcoxon Players' in 1951, when the two "transformed their living room into a stage." 'Guest star' performers sometimes appeared in the plays produced by the group, among them Larry Parks and Corinne Calvet, and soon the "Wilcoxon Group Players Annual Nativity Play" was being performed "at the Miles Playhouse in Santa Monica." The group was recognised by the American Cancer Society in 1956 with a Citation of Merit, awarded for donations received by attendees of the groups Easter productions.
Wilcoxon played a "small but important part" in DeMille's 1952 production The Greatest Show on Earth, on which film he also served as associate producer, helping steer the film towards its Academy Award for Best Picture, 1952. He also acted as associate producer on, and acted (as Pentaur, the pharaoh's captain of the guards) in DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (1956). Wilcoxon was sole producer on the 1958 film The Buccaneer, a remake of DeMille's 1938 effort, which DeMille only "supervised" (due to his declining health) while Anthony Quinn directed.
After DeMille died, Wilcoxon did "considerable work... in pre-production" on "a film based on the life of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement," which DeMille had left unrealised, and was also ultimately abandoned.
After a relatively inactive period "for the next three or four years," Wilcoxon had a "chance meeting with actor Charlton Heston and director Franklin Schaffner at Universal Studios," a meeting which saw him appear in The War Lord (1965), for which he again "went on tour... visiting 21 cities to publicize the picture."
He was credited as co-producer on a "90-minute tribute to Cecil B. DeMille televised by NBC" entitled The World's Greatest Showman: The Legend of Cecil B. DeMille (1963), whose production was hampered by the absence of "some of DeMille's best-remembered films of the 30s and 40s" when rights-holder MCA refused their use. At the opening of the DeMille Theatre in New York, he produced a "two-reel short," that in the estimation of critic Don Miller "was much better than this 90-minute tribute."Don Miller quoted in Daynard, Don Henry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain_George's_Whizzbang No. 13 (1971), pp. 2–7