James Booth

For other uses, see James Booth (disambiguation).

James Booth
Born	David Geeves (1927-12-19)19 December 1927 Croydon, Surrey, England
Died	Hadleigh, Essex, England
Other names	David Geeves-Booth
Years active	1958-2005
Spouse(s)	Paula Delaney (1960-2005) (his death) 4 children

James Booth (born David Geeves; 19 December 1927 – 11 August 2005) was an English film, stage and television actor and screenwriter. Though considered handsome enough to play leading roles, and versatile enough to play a wide variety of character parts, Booth naturally projected a shifty, wolfish, or unpredictable quality that led inevitably to villainous roles and comedy, usually with a cockney flavour. He is probably best known for his role as Private Henry Hook in Zulu.

Biography

He was born in Croydon, Surrey, on 19 December 1927, the son of a probation officer. He was educated at Southend Grammar School, which he left aged 17 to join the army. He rose to the rank of Captain. He spent several years working for an international trading company. However, his interest in acting soon took priority. He was trained at RADA and he made his first professional appearance as a member of the Old Vic company, before joining Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in 1958. The Workshop's musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be became a hit and Booth, who played its most pungent character, looked poised for stardom. Producer Irving Allen signed Booth to an exclusive contract with Warwick Films.

The sixties, and especially the early sixties, represented the most active period of Booth's movie career, with Zulu being the film for which he is best remembered. Joseph E. Levine put him under contract. He will also be remembered for playing the part of Kenny Ames, a pornography baron living in enforced exile in Spain, in series 2 of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet in 1985.

Though many observers expected Booth to become a major star, his acting career stalled and nearly died. In interviews, Booth was surprisingly forthcoming about the reasons for his professional difficulties. These included his appearance in the flop stage musical Twang! in 1965, the flop film The Secret of My Success opposite such popular actresses as Honor Blackman and Shirley Jones, his alcoholism, his unaggressive approach to selling himself, his lack of connections, and his own failure to work hard because everything came so easily to him at first. Booth also turned down the lead role of Alfie. By 1974 he was bankrupt, heavily in debt, and was forced to return to the stage.

When no one would offer Booth an acting job, he tried his hand at screenwriting and found a market for his services in Hollywood. From the mid-seventies to sometime in the nineties, Booth lived in southern California and worked primarily as a screenwriter, making occasional film or TV appearances, including a cameo appearance in the second series of Twin Peaks (1990).

In later life Booth moved back to England. He never retired.

He married Paula Delaney in 1960 and they had two sons and two daughters. He died in Hadleigh, Essex on 11 August 2005 aged 77. His last film - Keeping Mum - was dedicated to his memory.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1956	The Narrowing Circle	Bit Role	Uncredited
1957	The Girl in the Picture	Office boy	Credited as David Greever
1960	Jazzboat	Spider Kelly
1960	Let's Get Married	Photographer
1960	The Trials of Oscar Wilde	Alfred Wood
1960	In the Nick	Spider Kelly
1961	The Hellions	Jubal
1961	In the Doghouse	Bob Skeffington
1963	Sparrows Can't Sing	Charlie Gooding
1964	Zulu	Private Henry Hook VC
1964	French Dressing	Jim
1965	Ninety Degrees in the Shade	Vorell
1965	The Secret of My Success	Arthur Tate
1967	Robbery	Inspector George Langdon
1968	The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom	Ambrose Tuttle
1969	Fräulein Doktor	Meyer
1970	Adam's Woman	Dyson
1970	Darker than Amber	Burk
1970	Macho Callahan	Harry Wheeler
1970	The Man Who Had Power Over Women	Val Pringle
1971	Revenge	Jim Radford
1972	Rentadick	Simon Hamilton
1973	That'll Be The Day	Mr MacLaine
1973	Penny Gold	Matthews
1974	Percy's Progress	Jeffcott
1975	Brannigan	Charlie the Handle
1976	I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight	S.J. Nutbrown
1977	Airport '77	Ralph Crawford
1978	Evening in Byzantium	Jack Conrad
1980	Caboblanco	John Baker
1980	The Jazz Singer	Paul Rossini
1981	Zorro, The Gay Blade	Valasquez
1985	Pray for Death	Limehouse
1986	Bad Guys	Lord Percy
1986	Avenging Force	Admiral Brown	(also co-wrote)
1988	Deep Space	Dr. Forsyth
1990	American Ninja 4: The Annihilation	Mulgrew
1994	Inner Sanctum II	Detective Hooper
2001	The Breed	Fleming
2004	The Pool	Patrick
2005	Keeping Mum	Mr. Brown

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1958-59	William Tell	Various	3 episodes
1964	First Night	Newton	Episode: Stray Cats and Empty Bottles
1971	Shirley's World	Edmund Remberg	Episode: A Mother's Touch
1975	The Sweeney	Vic Labbett	Episode: Poppy
1982	The Fall Guy	Ian Graham	Episode: Child's Play
1985-93	Minder	Godfrey and Toby 'Jug' Johnson	2 episodes: Give Us This Daley's Bread and Gone with the Winchester
1986	Auf Wiedersehen, Pet	Kenny Ames	8 episodes
1990-91	Twin Peaks	Ernie Niles	5 episodes
2000	The Bill	Freddy Walker	Episode: Crime and Punishment

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1956-57	Richard III		Old Vic, London
1958	The Hostage	IRA officer	Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop
1958	A Christmas Carol	Bob Cratchit	For the Theatre Workshop
1959	Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be	Tosher	Theatre Royal, Stratford
1959	The Hostage	IRA officer	Wyndham's Theatre
1961-62	The Fire-Raisers		Royal Court Theatre
1962	The Caretaker	Mick
1962	The Comedy of Errors		RSC, Stratford-on-Avon
1962	King Lear	Edmund	RSC, Stratford-on-Avon
1965	Twang!	Robin Hood	Shaftesbury
1973	The Entertainer	Archie Rice
1975-76	Travesties	James Joyce	RSC and Noel Coward Theatre, London
1987-88	Peter Pan	Mr Darling/Captain James Hook	Tyne Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne and Opera House

Further reading

• Hall, Sheldon. Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It. Tomahawk Press, 2005.
• Noble, Peter. British Film and Television Yearbook: 1960/61. British and American Film Press, 1961.
• Walker, John. The Once and Future Film: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties. London: Methuen, 1985.

External links

• James Booth at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC News - Zulu actor James Booth dies at 77
• The Scotsman - Obituaries: James Booth
• The Stage: Actor James Booth dies
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