Harry Frederick Wilcoxon (8 September 1905 – 6 March 1984), known as Henry Wilcoxon, was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and who was a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.
Early life
Wilcoxon was born on 8 September 1905 in Roseau, Dominica. His father was English-born Robert Stanley 'Tan' Wilcoxon, manager of the Colonial Bank in Jamaica[1] and his mother, Lurline Mignonette Nunes, was a Jamaican amateur theatre actress, descendant of a wealthy Spanish merchant family.[1][2][3]
As important in his life as his parents, but closer, was his older brother Robert Owen Wilcoxon, known as 'Owen'. Henry (known then by his born name, Harry) had a difficult childhood. His mother "disappeared suddenly and mysteriously" (presumably she died) when he was about a year old, and his father took him and Owen (aged four) to England with the intention that his own mother, Ann Wilcoxon, would care for them. But because the grandmother was too frail to care for the children, they were first sent to a bad foster home, where they became ill from malnutrition and neglect until this was discovered by the authorities, and they were moved to an orphanage. Harry suffered from rickets, and Owen developed a stutter and had epileptic fits.[4] They were rescued from the orphanage to a new foster home run by the more caring Stewart family, at Springfield House in Acton, London.[5][6] After several years Harry's father 'Tan', with his new wife Rosamond took the children home with them to Bridgetown, Barbados, where they were educated. Harry was sent to Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston, Jamaica and Harrison College, Barbados. Harry later claimed that at 14 he was 'almost' the underwater swimming champion of Barbados[7] and good enough to become a salvage diver.[2]
Harry and his brother Owen were known as 'Biff' and 'Bang' to friends and family due to fighting skills gained in amateur boxing.
Acting
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.[2] 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.[2]
Also in 1933, "while acting on stage in Eight Bells, a talent scout for Paramount Pictures reportedly arranged a screen test which came to the attention of producer-director Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood."[2] DeMille recalls in his autobiography:
One of my longest and closest professional and personal associations began because I was impatient about waiting my turn for the use of a projection room at the studio, while I was casting Cleopatra. I had already engaged Claudette Colbert for the title role, but had not yet found a satisfactory Mark Antony to play opposite her.
However, I did have some film footage of horses that I wanted to see, for possible use in the picture. I took it to the projection room, but found the room in use... While waiting in the booth, I heard, come from the soundtrack of the test film [being shown], a resonant, manly voice, with only a pleasant trace of an English accent... I asked who the young actor was.
'Oh,' I was told, 'he's a young Englishman that Paramount signed from the London stage. Name of Harry Wilcoxon, but the executives don't think Harry is dignified enough, so we're changing his name to Henry Wilcoxon.'
'Harry or Henry,' I said, 'he is Marc Antony.' "[10]
So he was renamed by DeMille for the role of Marc Antony in Cleopatra, and from then on he was Henry Wilcoxon.
a wad of flame fell from a torch directly on Olivier's head, setting his wig afire. Wilcoxon, standing right beside him, tried to extinguish the blaze but was unsuccessful. Finally he had to wrench the wig from Olivier's head, but both of his hands were badly burned while Olivier's eyebrows were scorched."[2]
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, Wilcoxon enlisted in the United States Coast Guard, supposedly "leaving his home twenty minutes after the announcement that the U.S. had declared war and proceeding to enlist then and there."[2] He served with the Coast Guard until 1946, gaining the rank of lieutenant commander.[2]
During his period of service, three films in which he appeared were released in 1942, among them Mrs. Miniver,[11] which received considerable public acclaim, as well as six Academy Awards.[2] Wilcoxon, in his role as the vicar, "wrote and re-wrote" the key sermon with director William Wyler "the night before the sequence was to be shot."[2] The speech "made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory."[2]
Upon his return from war service, Wilcoxon "picked up his relationship with Cecil B. DeMille" with Unconquered, and after starring as Sir Lancelot in the 1949 musical version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (with Bing Crosby in the title role), he featured (with "fifth starring billing") in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949).[2] 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."[2] 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 Brotherspublic relations man Frank Braden" (who also collapsed, in Minneapolis).[2] Condon finished touring by the time of the film's release in October 1949.[2] 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.
Later life as producer and TV actor
In the late 1940s, "several young actors and actresses came to Wilcoxon and wife Joan Woodbury and asked them to form a play-reading group", which began to take shape as the 'Wilcoxon Players' in 1951, when the two "transformed their living room into a stage."[2] 'Guest star' performers sometimes appeared in the plays produced by the group, among them Larry Parks and Corinne Calvet, and soon the "Wilcoxon Group Players Annual Nativity Play" was being performed "at the Miles Playhouse in Santa Monica."[2] The group was recognised by the American Cancer Society in 1956 with a Citation of Merit, awarded for donations received by attendees of the groups Easter productions.[2]
Wilcoxon played a "small but important part" in DeMille's 1952 production The Greatest Show on Earth, on which film he also served as associate producer, helping steer the film towards its Academy Award for Best Picture, 1952.[2] He also acted as associate producer on, and acted (as Pentaur, the pharaoh's captain of the guards) in DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (1956). Wilcoxon was sole producer on the 1958 film The Buccaneer, a remake of DeMille's 1938 effort, which DeMille only "supervised" (due to his declining health) while Anthony Quinn directed.[2]
After DeMille died, Wilcoxon did "considerable work... in pre-production" on "a film based on the life of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement," which DeMille had left unrealised, and was also ultimately abandoned.[2]
After a relatively inactive period "for the next three or four years," Wilcoxon had a "chance meeting with actor Charlton Heston and director Franklin Schaffner at Universal Studios," a meeting which saw him appear in The War Lord (1965), for which he again "went on tour... visiting 21 cities to publicize the picture."[2]
He was credited as co-producer on a "90-minute tribute to Cecil B. DeMille televised by NBC" entitled The World's Greatest Showman: The Legend of Cecil B. DeMille (1963), whose production was hampered by the absence of "some of DeMille's best-remembered films of the 30s and 40s" when rights-holder MCA refused their use.[2] At the opening of the DeMille Theatre in New York, he produced a "two-reel short," that in the estimation of critic Don Miller "was much better than this 90-minute tribute."[12]
In the last two decades of his life, Wilcoxon worked sporadically and accepted minor acting roles in a number of television and film productions. He guest-starred in shows including Daniel Boone, Perry Mason, I Spy, It Takes a Thief, The Wild Wild West, Gunsmoke, Cimarron Strip, Cagney & Lacey, The Big Valley, Private Benjamin and Marcus Welby, M. D., as well as in a smaller number of films. Wilcoxon is probably best known today for his small but memorable role as the golf-obsessed Bishop Pickering in the classic 1980 comedy Caddyshack.[2] In one scene, he plays golf in the driving rain with groundskeeper Carl, played by actor Bill Murray. It took hours to film the scene, with both actors standing under artificial rain towers and wind machines. In an interview from 2010, Murray called Wilcoxon “a great pro” who “nailed everything he did.” Wilcoxon also told Murray that the book, The Art of Dramatic Writing was an influence in his career.[13]
Through loans from the assets he acquired from his early acting career, Wilcoxon assisted his brother Owen in establishing himself in 1931 as a partner in the Vale Motor Company in London. For a short time, Henry showed a personal interest in the development of their sports car, the Vale Special. At that time his female companion was a London-based American stage actress Carol Goodner.[14]
English-born actress Heather Angel, whom he had previously acted with in Self Made Lady (1932) when they were both in England, had come to Hollywood a few months before Wilcoxon and met him again in 1934.[15] They became lifetime friends.[16] She taught him horse-riding, and acted in two more films with him: The Last of the Mohicans (1936) and Lady Hamilton (1941). Heather Angel and her husband Ralph Forbes were both present at Wilcoxon's wedding to Sheila Garrett.
Wilcoxon married a 19-year-old actress Sheila Garrett on 28 June 1936, but they divorced a year later. When they had first met, two years before they were married, she was introduced by her sister Lynn Browning as "Bonnie", but when they got to know each other better he preferred the name Sheila Garrett.[17]
On 17 December 1938, he married 23 year old actress Joan Woodbury.[18] They had three daughters: Wendy Joan Robert Wilcoxon (1939–2020),[19] Heather Ann Wilcoxon (1947) and Cecilia Dawn "CiCi" Wilcoxon (1950).[2] His second daughter was named after Heather Angel.[20] His youngest daughter was named after Cecil B. DeMille: DeMille said he wanted the child to be called Cecil if it was a boy, but when it turned out to be a girl, DeMille was still insistent, saying "I think Cecilia is a beautiful name! My daughter is named Cecilia."[21] They divorced in 1969.[22]
Wilcoxon was an amateur painter and photographer, whose work was exhibited on at least one occasion in London.[2] He was also "an avid antique collector and accomplished flier."[2]
At his home in Burbank in the summer of 1975 Wilcoxon first met his niece Valerie (1933–2017), the English daughter of his brother Owen[23] with Dorothy Drew (sister of architect Jane Drew). Up until then he did not know that his brother, killed in 1940 during the Dunkirk evacuation, had any children.
^Lionheart in Hollywood, Prologue p.xv: "Tan advertised for a foster home and the brothers were sent to the first family that responded. There Harry and Owen were locked in an attic room and fed leftovers while the money and clothing that came with them went to the family's own children. Harry and Owen were kept in appalling conditions, both afflicted with lice, Harry crippled with rickets and Owen developed a lifelong stutter and epileptic fits.
^Lionheart in Hollywood, Prologue p.xvi: "Even when the abuse was discovered, neither father nor grandmother wanted to take them back; instead the boys were sent to an orphanage and might have remained there if a good foster home not heard of their plight and considered taking them in. The Stewart family (consisting mainly of maiden sisters), with a large house in Acton, accepted the abandoned children. The youngest, Ruth, took special care of Owen. Harry had atrocious behaviour but was taken in hand by an elder sister Sara. The boys had to call each sister "Auntie", were taught table manners, sent to Sunday school, tutored in school work and Harry's legs fitted with braces.
^The 1911 census shows Harry and Owen Wilcoxon with the Stewart family at Springfield House, Horn Lane, Acton. They are Charlotte Stewart (age 80) and single daughters Harriet (49), Caroline (48), Sara (39), Kathleen (37) and Ruth (34). Also a son John (41) with his wife Florence (33). The house had 18 rooms.
^Lionheart in Hollywood, p.29, p.86. Twice in the biography Henry is quoted as saying he was almost the underwater swimming champion of Barbados.
^Cecil B. DeMille quoted by Daynard, Don Henry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain George's Whizzbang No. 13 (1971), pp. 2–7
^His role in "Mrs. Miniver" must have had special meaning to Henry because his only brother, Sub-Lieutenant Robert Owen Wilcoxon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, had been killed by a German bomb when assisting in the Dunkirk evacuation on 29 May 1940.
^Don Miller quoted in Daynard, Don Henry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain George's Whizzbang No. 13 (1971), pp. 2–7
^Caddyshack: The making of a Hollywood Cinderella story, Flatiron Books, 2018, page 187.
^Statements made on certain movie websites that Heather Angel and Henry Wilcoxon were married are spurious. No such marriage is mentioned in Henry's autobiography Lionheart in Hollywood.
^On 21 June 1940, at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hollywood, Henry and Joan Wilcoxon's daughter, first named Wendy Joan Wilcoxon was christened Wendy Joan Robert Wilcoxon in memory of his brother Robert Owen Wilcoxon who had been killed at the Dunkirk Evacuation three weeks earlier
^Sub-Lieut. Robert Owen Wilcoxon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, only brother of Henry Wilcoxon, assisted in the Dunkirk evacuation on 29 May 1940; but, having helped to get hundreds of Allied troops off the beach to safety in his assault landing craft, he was fatally injured when, after returning to the sloop HMS Bideford to arrange a tow back to Dover, the ship had its stern blown off by a bomb dropped from a dive-bombing German aircraft. This must have been on Wilcoxon's mind during the making of the film Mrs. Miniver. This event is reported in the book The Evacuation from Dunkirk, 'Operation Dynamo', 26 May–4 June 1940 ed. W. J. R. Gardner, pub. Frank Cass, London, 2000 ISBN0-7146-5120-6
Bibliography
Cox, David (2006). Ave Atque Vale – the story of the Vale Special. Berkshire: Martin Publications. ISBN0-9553010-0-9.
Gardner, W. J. R., ed. (2000). The Evacuation from Dunkirk: 'Operation Dynamo' 26 May – 4 June 1940. London: Frank Cass. ISBN0-7146-5120-6.
Harris, Peter (ed.); Daynard, Don (1971). "Henry Wilcoxon" in The New Captain George's Whizzbang No. 13 (Vol.3 No.1). Toronto: Vast Whizzbang Organization. ((cite book)): |first= has generic name (help)
Wilcoxon, Henry; Orrison, Katherine (1991). Lionheart in Hollywood: the autobiography of Henry Wilcoxon. Metuchen, NJ and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN0-8108-2476-0.
