British actor, scriptwriter and playwright. Malleson is probably most familiar as the genteel hangman of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) or as Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), or in a wide range of small but distinctive character parts in post-war films ranging from Geordie (1955) to Peeping Tom (1960).
He was also, however, on the advisory council of the Masses Stage and Film Guild established by the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1929 to bring 'plays and films of an international character to working-class audiences'; he was the author of a play on the Tolpuddle Martyrs supported by the Trades Union Congress, and, simultaneously, he was one of Herbert Wilcox's leading scriptwriters in the 1910s, with credits including such hits as Nell Gwyn (1934) and Peg of Old Drury (1935), the patriotic celebrations of monarchy, Victoria the Great (1937) and Sixty Glorious Years (1938), and, for Alexander Korda, The Thief of Bagdad (1940), in which he also played the Sultan.
Retired from acting due to failing eyesight.
Filmography: You Must Be Joking! (1965), First Men in the Moon (1964), Midsummer Night's Dream, A (1964) (TV), Postman's Knock (1962), Phantom of the Opera, The (1962), Brides of Dracula, The (1960), Peeping Tom (1960), Kidnapped (1960), Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959), Dracula (1958), Three Men in a Boat (1956), Importance of Being Earnest, The (1952), Scrooge (1951), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Thief of Bagdad, The (1940).
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