Biography

Lionel Jeffries

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With his bald head, firm jawline and bristling moustache, Lionel Jeffries played a nice line of English eccentrics. This belied his RADA training. Following military service in WWII, he played his major roles - everything from Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) to the Marquis of Queensberry in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) - in the 1960s.

His surprisingly brief career as a director included the highly popular family films The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972).
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
Despite Lionel's parents being in the Salvation Army, he was weaned on films as his father, out of what little money they got, bought him a small film camera and projector. At the age of 5 he was helping to to edit films. He went bald while he was in Burma during the war, after which he spent 2 -3 years in rep at Lichfield. The only time he wore a toupée was in the film The Secret of My Success (1965) in which the character he played aged from a young man to an old one. Out of the 150 or so films that he made, he considered The Long Ships (1964) was the worst.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

Although he played Dick Van Dyke's father in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), he was six months his junior in real life.
His hair fell out during a single week when he was 19. He tried wearing a wig to cover up his bald head but soon rejected it because it looked like "a dead moth on a boiled egg".
His parents were members of the Salvation Army, and worked in a mission in London's East End.
He retired from acting in 2001 after being diagnosed with vascular dementia.
He made about 20 Ministry of Information films after the war.

I was constantly rewriting the words of the comedy characters I was given to bring them a comic humanity. Most of the people I played were caught in desperation. In their hearts they knew that they were failures - but they would never admit it, even to themselves.
[on The Colditz Story (1955)] I went to the cast meeting with holes in my shoes, but I was given the third lead to Eric Portman and John Mills.
I was the only bald student at RADA. Of course I was upset. Tried a toupee once, but it looked like a dead moth on a boiled egg.
No one wants family entertainment any more. They want explicit sex.

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