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Anthony Steel

Anthony Steel brought the stature, polished voice and air of authority that British cinema often demanded from its leading men in the postwar years. Born in Chelsea, London, in 1920, he spent much of his early childhood in Lahore, India, and later attended Trinity College, Cambridge. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, when he enlisted in the Grenadier Guards at 19. He was evacuated from Dunkirk, served in the Middle East, trained as a parachutist and completed nine operational jumps before finishing the war as a major. After demobilisation, Steel chose acting, although the path was not immediately glamorous: for a time, he worked with a pick and shovel at Clapham Junction. Stage work followed, including repertory appearances and a production of Roses for Her Pillow opposite Margaret Lockwood. A long-term Rank contract then gave his screen career its shape. Trained at Rank’s so-called charm school, he was introduced gradually through small parts rather than launched overnight as a star. His early film appearances included Saraband for Dead Lovers, Quartet, Portrait from Life, The Blue Lamp, Trottie True, Christopher Columbus and The Chiltern Hundreds. Across those films, Steel’s height, handsome appearance and strong speaking voice made him a natural fit for the composed, upright figures that populated British drama and adventure pictures of the period. Steel also worked across stage and television. He made his television debut in a 1974 episode of Thriller and later appeared in Crossroads, Bergerac, Robin of Sherwood and The Professionals, where he played shadow minister Sir Charles Milvern in “The Female Factor.” These later roles made good use of a presence that could suggest respectability, status or authority—and sometimes allow those qualities to be undermined. He continued touring on stage during the 1980s, with his final theatrical role coming in a 1989 Birmingham pantomime production of Cinderella. A later television guest appearance came in The Broker’s Man. Steel died in 2001, leaving a career that stretched from Rank-era British filmmaking to the changing television landscape of the following decades.