Accidentally on Purpose

In an inside study of the acting profession, a popular actor discusses the development of his craft, describes his personal experiences on and offstage, and profiles some of the personalities he has known.


Though ever striving for variety in his roles (159 to date!), York is best known in the States as a leading man and, as in Cabaret, as major support for other characters. In England, he has played Romeo, Hamlet, and Cyrano, and since then has made his belated but well-received Broadway debut in Tennessee Williams's two-character play Out Cry. 


Born in 1942 in the village of Fulmer, he was the son of a serving RAF officer, and later businessman, whose wife was six years older. He showed an early gift for acting, which was fed by the Oxford University Dramatic Society and developed professionally in the Dundee Repertory, then seen to flower modestly in Olivier's National Theatre. York made an early transition to film, first appearing in Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew, Harold Pinter- Joseph Losey's Accident, a 13-part BBC-TV version of The Forsyte Saga, and again with Zeffirelli in his gloriously mounted Romeo and Juliet as fiery young Tybalt. 


York married young, to Pat McCallum, an American photographer, honeymooned in India while serving in his first Merchant-Ivory production. After George Cukor's Justine, in which he played Durrell's narrator Darley, his film career hit a major high note in Bob Fosse's Cabaret, which was followed by spirited work in Richard Lester's Musketeer films and Marty Feldman's The Last Remake of Beau Geste.


KIRKUS REVIEW WRITES "York writes at leisurely length (like Cottrell on Olivier), is always affable, warm-spirited, evenhanded…"


FEATURING 56 BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS