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Biography
Owen Nares (1888-1943) had a long theatre and film career and, for most of the 1920s, was in Britain a favourite matinee idol and silent-film star. Delicate but very good looking, he was encouraged by his mother to become an actor and, in 1908, received his training from the actress, Rosina Filippi. The following year, he was playing small parts in West End productions, including, at St. James’s Theatre Old Heidelburg and Pinero’s Mid Channel.
Over the next few years, as his reputation grew, he performed with many of the outstanding actors of the era including Beerbohm Tree, Constance Collier and Marion Terry. He first attracted critical and public notice when he appeared, in January 1912, with Charles Kenyon in The Blindness of Virtue at the Little Theatre.
During the First World War, he rose to fame, satisfying the public’s need for romantic escapism. In 1914, he appeared in the first of the 25 silent films he was to make. (In all but three of these, made between 1916 and 1932, he was the male lead, plying opposite such luminaries as Gladys Cooper, Fay Compton, Madge Titheradge and Ruby Miller.) His stage career also continued to flourish. In 1915-16, he played Thomas Armstrong in Edward Sheldon's Romance at the Lyric Theatre. It ran for an astounding 1,047 performances. In 1917-18, he starred with Lily Elsie in the musical comedy Pamela, at the Palace Theatre. It ran for a respectable 172 performances. In 1918, he presented at the Victoria Theatre the first performance of A. A. Milne’s short play, The Boy Comes, which then introduced into his new show Hello, America! at the Palace Theatre. He continued to star in popular West End shows, almost without pause, until 1926. He then took a break and set off with his own company for a tour of South Africa.
On his return, he continued to star in the genteel social comedies that were then when West End audiences demanded. These included: Edgar Wallace’s The Calendar (1929) at the Wyndham’s Theatre; Call It a Day (1935) with Marie Lohr & Fay Compton; and St. John Ervine’s Robert’s Wife (1938) in which he starred with Edith Evans. With the advent of talkies, his considerable stage experience meant that, in the early days, he was still much in demand and starred in four films made in 1932-3. He was, however, too mature to be the handsome star he had been a decade earlier. In the last six films he made, he played supporting roles.
In 1942, he played a supporting role in a revival of Robert E. Sherwood’s The Petrified Forrest, staged at the Globe Theatre. Afterwards he went on tour with the play to the North of England and Wales. At Brecon, he visited ‘The Shoulder of Mutton’ public house, the birthplace of the great Sarah Siddons (1755-1831). While he was in the room where she had been born, he had a heart-attack and died a half hour later.
| Items for Sale on Collectors' Post |
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| 014669 |
Theatre: Programs (UK) - pre 1940 | ROBERT'S WIFE (by St. John Ervine) with EDITH EVANS & OWEN NARES |
| 016692 |
Theatre: Programs (UK) - pre 1940 | THE FANATICS (by Miles Malleson) with OWEN NARES & URSULA JEANS |
| 011521 |
Theatre: Photos - Signed | OWEN NARES - signed postcard |
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