Henry Wilcoxon

His father was Robert Stanley Wilcoxon (known as "Tan"), manager of the Colonial Bank in Jamaica, and his mother Lurline Minuette Nunes, who had been an amateur theatre actress.<br /><br /> Following is a summary of the early childhood of Henry (Harry) and his brother Robert Owen Wilcoxon (Owen), from his autobiography.<br /><br /> Harry and Owen were known as 'Biff' and 'Bang' to friends and family due to fighting skills gained in amateur boxing.<br /><br /> After completing his education, Wilcoxon was employed by Joseph Rank, the father of J. Arthur Rank, before working for Bond Street tailors Pope and Bradshaw. While working for the tailors, Wilcoxon applied for a visa to work as a chauffeur in the United States, but upon seeing his application refused, turned to boxing and then to acting.<br /><br /> Wilcoxon's first stage performance "was in the E. M. Dell play The 100th Chance," before he joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and toured "for several years" playing "all roles that came his way." Among these roles, he found critical success playing Captain Cook in a production of Rudolph Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the Queen's Theatre alongside Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Scott Sunderland and Cedric Hardwicke. Read Less

To help pre-sell the film, "DeMille arranged for Wilcoxon to tour the country giving a series of lectures on the film and its research in 41 key cities in the United States and Canada." However, "after the fourteenth city," Wilcoxon collapsed "from a mild bout of pneumonia," (actually tuberculosis), and the tour was continued by "press-agent Richard Condon and Ringling Brothers public relations man Frank Braden" (who also collapsed, in Minneapolis). Condon finished touring by the time of the films release in October, 1949. Wilcoxon, meanwhile, had returned to England under contract to feature in The Miniver Story (1950), a sequel to the multi-Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) in which he reprised his role as the vicar. Read Less

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6256 Hollywood Blvd. west of Argyle St., in front of the W Hollywood Hotel & Residences and the Metro Red Line Hollywood/Vine station, and across from the Pantages Theater.<br /><br /> Wilcoxon was an amateur painter and photographer, whose work was exhibited on at least one occasion in London. He was also "an avid antique collector and accomplished flier." With his wife Joan Woodbury, he had three daughters: Wendy Joan, Heather Ann and Cecilia Dawn.<br /><br /> A few years before he died, Henry had an emotional meeting with his niece Valerie (born 1933), the English daughter of his brother Owen with Dorothy Drew (sister of architect Jane Drew). Up until then he did not know that his brother, killed at the Dunkirk evacuation, had any children.<br /><br /> In The Devil Thumbs a Ride and Other Movies (New York: Grove Press, 1988), Barry Gifford, citing personal experience of an attempted pickup by the actor, suggests that Wilcoxon was bisexual. Read Less