Martyn Green
Pinafore, the Major-General in Pirates, Bunthorne in Patience, the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard and the Duke of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers, among others.
He then left the company again and moved to New York City, where he continued his career in Broadway musicals, plays, television, recordings and films.
He continued to act and direct for the rest of his life and had a variety of film roles, notably in A Lovely Way to Die (1968) and The Iceman Cometh (1973).
[2][dead link] His father, William Green (1868–1920), a tenor concert singer, was his first singing teacher,[3][4] and his mother was Sarah Ann, née Martin (b.
[5] When his elder brother Alexander died, Green left school and was apprenticed to a draper in Wigan from 1914 to 1915, but he was unhappy there and was eager to join the army.
The following year, he sang in variety at the Palladium before playing his first major role, Paul Petrov, the romantic lead in a provincial tour of the operetta Sybil, again with an Edwardes company.
[6] By the 1928–30 seasons, in addition to singing these smaller baritone roles, Green had a chance to fill in for Lytton from time to time in all the patter roles, including General Stanley, Bunthorne in Patience, the Lord Chancellor, Ko-Ko, Robin Oakapple in Ruddigore, Jack Point in Yeomen and the Duke of Plaza-Toro.
[6] In 1931, Lytton was injured in a car accident in which D'Oyly Carte principal contralto Bertha Lewis received fatal injuries.
In 1934, Lytton's retirement left Green as the principal comedian of the D'Oyly Carte company, playing all of the comic roles in their repertory over the next five years, which included London seasons and extended British and American tours.
[6] Green gained enthusiastic notices for, among other things, his excellent diction and comedic stage movement, despite the World War I injury to his knee.
[3] Green was a slim song-and-dance man who could make audiences laugh with a mere "twitch of a toe... [or] punctilious verbal articulation, nasally pompous", while bringing elements of seriousness and pathos to some of the roles.
[2] His director in the film, Victor Schertzinger, said of Green: "He has that special sort of comedian's quality that only Chaplin has so far developed to perfection.
[10] Green arranged, as soon as possible, for an engagement with Charles B. Cochran to appear in the Noel Gay revue Lights Up at the Savoy Theatre.
He wrote: I had heard there was some possibility of [the selection of Evans] happening and ... told Miss Carte that I thought she was making a great psychological error.
During Anna Bethell's regime... there had been growing signs of discontent and suggestions of favouritism being shown to some of the members of the chorus in respect to passing over existing understudies, selections for small parts, and so on.
[14]Historian Tony Joseph wrote: "It was the largest single exodus of performers in D'Oyly Carte history, and that was why the sense of sadness that hovered over the season was so marked.
"[13] After leaving the D'Oyly Carte company, Green appeared as George Grossmith in the film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (released in 1953).
In 1954, he appeared with Ginger Rogers in a Producers' Showcase television presentation of Red Peppers from Tonight at 8.30, directed by Otto Preminger.
In 1960 he directed Groucho Marx, Helen Traubel, Stanley Holloway and Robert Rounseville in a Bell Telephone Hour television condensed production of The Mikado.
Green also continued frequently to direct and produce Gilbert and Sullivan productions and worked with various touring companies and in summer stock.
is somewhat more candid and expansive in dealing with D'Oyly Carte personalities and situations than its British counterpart (London, Max Reinhardt, 210 pp).
He also wrote an introduction to Leslie Ayre's 1972 "The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion", in which he commented wryly that the Gilbert and Sullivan operas "have been translated into many languages, including American and Australian...." Green's papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University.
