Oliver Griffen Johnston was an English actor. After training at RADA, his theatre work included the original production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street at Malvern (1930) and its subsequent West End transfer (1930-1932). Johnston started his film career in 1938, when he was already 50 years old. Working until shortly before his death, he appeared in nearly 90 film and television productions, where he often portrayed meek or mild-mannered types in supporting roles.
Publicity still, 1960
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1930 play by the Dutch/English dramatist Rudolf Besier, based on the romance between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, and her domineering father's unwillingness to allow them to marry. Presented first at the Malvern Festival in August 1930, the play transferred to the West End, where it ran for 528 performances. An American production, produced by and starring Katharine Cornell, opened in 1931 and ran on Broadway for 370 performances. The play has subsequently been revived onstage and adapted for television and the cinema.
First US edition 1930s
Brian Aherne and Katharine Cornell in the original Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1931)
Cornell reprising her role in the Producers' Showcase television production of the play in 1956