He also played Merlin in the BBC television series The Legend of King Arthur, and the tragic ferryman in The Storyteller episode "The Luck Child".
He had a twin brother,[citation needed] Talbot Leadam Eddison, who later became a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and received the Distinguished Service Cross[1] and The Most Honourable Order of the Bath.
He was extremely disappointed to discover that there was no dramatic society, especially considering that its past alumni included such theatre luminaries as Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Cyril Maude, Richard Goolden and Max Beerbohm.
[3] It was anticipated that he would follow in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather and paternal uncle and become a doctor, consequently yet uncertain, Eddison later studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where he read medicine.
During his time there he played Virginia alongside George Rylands in Coriolanus and as Beatrice opposite Michael Redgrave as Florindo in Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters.
"[3] As a result of his passions evidently remaining elsewhere, Eddison later revealed that he "came down" without a degree, but "didn't think it mattered at all, but had my chosen profession failed me, I would probably not have felt in any way light-hearted.
"[3] In his early career, he spent a year at the Westminster Theatre, making his London debut in The Anatomist again with Flora Robson and Henry Ainley and directed by Tyrone Guthrie.
He was seen and noted by Noël Coward whilst performing in a comedy titled Yes and No and later invited by Val Gielgud to appear in radio productions at the BBC.
He was also free to accept an engagement from H.M. Tennent to appear alongside and in Noël Coward's This Happy Breed and his semi-autobiographical stage play Present Laughter in the part of Roland Maule.
It was during a medical X-ray that they discovered that Eddison's heart was on the wrong side of his chest, but it was the view that if it hadn't caused any trouble before that was no reason it should do now.
He soon rose through the ranks, being appointed a temporary sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 5 June 1942,[4] and was sent to HMS King Alfred, which was a training depot for officers.
Not long after, he spent two further seasons at the Bristol Old Vic where he played Iago and was noted for his Hamlet, opposite Jane Wenham as Ophelia which later transferred to the St James' Theatre in 1948.
Throughout his career, Eddison had a steady stream of work and performed in Shakespeare and other classics, later playing the comic roles of Feste and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, and King Lear on the New York stage.
When being interviewed by McKellen's biographer he reminisced that "It was a wonderful time… At the Piccadilly Theatre there were always queues at the Box Office and the younger members of the cast got very excited and I thought, poor things, they have been deprived".
The Duke of York was a dull part, really, but I loved playing it - and Richard Cottrell exercised his considerable persuasive powers [as director] on me to do this and Lightborn.
McKellen later recalled how when performing Chekhov's 'The Wood Demon' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music they shared the stage-level dressing-room where Enrico Caruso reputedly died.
Eddison also made his mark in radio, in countless BBC dramas through the decades, with some of his last roles including Death in The Canterbury Tales and parts in an adaptation of Japanese Noh plays.
His film career was limited, but included a supporting role in Peter Ustinov's 1948 comedy Vice Versa, the electrical 'Nick' in The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972) and the college president in American Friends (1991).
Julian Glover, who played villain Walter Donovan, recalled Eddison was excited and nervous for his return to film, often asking if he had performed correctly.
A lifelong smoker, and despite annually giving up smoking for Lent, Eddison died of bronchial pneumonia at a London hospital in 1991, aged 83.
The majority of the collection was built up following World War II, with acquisitions from well-known London dealers and from country outlets visited while on tour.
Campbell later said "I remember sitting in the cinema as a ten-year-old in 1981 watching Harrison Ford in the first Indiana Jones film and immediately getting interested in archaeology.