Gerald
Harper began in the acting profession with a season of one-act plays by Bernard
Shaw at the Arts Theatre in London. He spent a year in repertory at the Liverpool
Playhouse, after which he returned to the Arts Theatre for productions including
The Father, by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Gerald's next production
was in Charley's Aunt with Frankie
Howerd at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London. Gerald Harper's other West End work
includes, Ross, by Terence Rattigan, at the Haymarket, Suddenly At Home,
at the Fortune, Baggage, at the Vaudeville and The Little Hut at
the Duke Of York's. Gerald appeared in Jean Louis Barrault's production of Rabelais,
in the role Barrault played in Paris. The 1980s saw Gerald as Sherlock Holmes
at the Haymarket Theatre, a long run at the Globe in House Guest and A
personal Affair at the Savoy.
Gerald
Harper has appeared in four musical productions: Free As Air, Bless
The Bride, Me & My Girl and The Corsican Affair. He has
also starred in Murder By Misadventure at the Vaudeville, The Royal
Baccarat Scandal at the Haymarket, and Mrs Warren's Profession at the
Royal Exchange, Manchester. Also in Manchester, Gerald appeared in Dion Boucicault's
London Assurance and at the Criterion Theatre in The Countess.
Gerald
Harper's classical work includes two years at the Old Vic Company, this involved
touring the United States from coast-to-coast, in productions Hamlet, Twelfth
Night and Henry V. This was followed by Lago at the Bristol
Old Vic, and by Benedick at the Chichester Festival Theatre. He later returned
to Broadway to star in Boeing, Boeing with Ian Carmichael. As well
as acting, Gerald has also directed many plays in his career, these include Blithe
Spirit in Hebrew at the Israeli National Theatre in Tel Aviv.
Gerald's
many film appearances include: The Admiral Crichton (1950), The Dambusters (1954),
The League of Gentlemen (1959), Tunes of Glory (1960), Shoes of The Fisherman
(1968) and The Lady Vanishes (1979), he is probably best known for his television
work, most notably as Adam Adamant in Adam
Adamant Lives! (BBC, 1966 - 1967). In this series Gerald plays
an Edwardian crime-fighting adventurer, who has been in a state of suspended-animation
for sixty four years, after being injected with a drug which paralysed him, and
then frozen in a block of ice by his arch-nemesis, The Face. In 1966, demolition
workers discover Adam in his frozen state in the builing where he has languished
for over half a century, and he is subsequently revived. Adam later discovers
that The Face (Peter Ducrow) has also made the transition into the middle
of the twentieth century.
