David Tree

David Tree (15 July 1915 in London – 4 November 2009), born Ian David Parsons, was an English stage and screen actor from a distinguished theatrical family whose career in the 1930s included roles in numerous stage presentations as well as in thirteen films produced between 1937 and 1941, among which were 1939's Goodbye Mr. Chips and two of producer Gabriel Pascal's adaptations of Shaw classics, 1938's Pygmalion, in which he portrayed Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and 1941's Major Barbara, in which he was Charles Lomax.

Tree was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, the son of theatre critic Alan Parsons and actress Viola Tree, the daughter of renowned Victorian actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The young performer's first exposure to the stage came at the age of six, when he played a bear in his mother's 1921 revival of The Tempest at the Aldwych Theatre in London and continued through his childhood years, as exemplified by his portrayal, at eleven-and-a-half, of Lieutenant Spicer in a January 1927 juvenile production of Quality Street. Taking as his stage name the famous surname from his mother's side of the family, he spent a year studying drama at the Old Vic where, in his words, he "played spear carriers and said 'Hail Caesar!' a lot", such as in September 1934's production of Antony and Cleopatra. Joining the repertory company at Oxford Playhouse, he remained there, on and off, for three seasons and, by March 1937, was at the Embassy and Savoy theatres, playing Mago in The Road to Rome. In 1938, he was Robin in Only Yesterday at the Intimate Theatre during February, Ferdinand in The Tempest and Feste in Twelfth Night at Regent Park's Open Air Theatre during June–July, Edgar Malleson in Serena Blandish at the Gate Theatre Studio during September, and Gerald in Ma's Bit O'Brass at the Q Theatre during October. In 1939 he had a notable success portraying Mervyn Brudge in Little Ladyship at the Strand Theatre during February and, during March, played Christopher Hatton in Drake at the Coliseum Theatre for King George's Pension Fund for Actors.

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