Marius Goring

Actor · born 23 May 1912 · Newport, Isle of Wight, England, UK

Marius Re Goring CBE FRSL (May 23, 1912 – September 30, 1998) was an English stage and screen actor. He is the son of Dr Charles Buckman Goring, a renowned physician and criminologist, and Kate Winifred (née MacDonald), a former suffragette and talented pianist. Marius Goring was educated at The Perse School, Cambridge, England and at universities in Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Paris (The Sorbonne) where he perfected his French and German - he became fluent in both languages. He studied for the stage under Harcourt Williams at the Old Vic dramatic school, London. His first stage appearance was a fairy at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge in 1925 at the age of twelve in "Crossings: A Fairy Play" the only play written by Walter De La Mare. His first London appearance was at the Rudolph Steiner Hall in December 1927 as Harlequin in one of Jean Sterling McKinlay’s Children’s Matinees. He performed regularly at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells in the 1930s and later toured France and Germany. He played Macbeth, Romeo, Trip in School for Scandal and the Chorus in Henry V with Laurence Olivier amongst others. His first West End appearance was at the Shaftesbury Theatre in May 1934 in The Voysey Inheritance.

He joined the army in July 1940 but was seconded the following year to the BBC where he became supervisor of productions for its German Service. He made regular propaganda broadcasts to Germany. Most of his radio propaganda work was done under the alias Charles Richardson (using his father’s first name and his grandmother’s maiden name) as the name Goring wasn't too popular during the war (Hermann Göring was the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe).

Where to start: The Red Shoes (1948).