James Ottaway

James Ottaway (25 July 1908 – 16 June 1999) was a British film, television and stage actor whose career spanned seven decades.

Born as William Cecil James Ottaway in 1908 in Chertsey in Surrey, he was the son of William Henry Ottaway, an enthusiastic amateur actor with the St Pancras People's Theatre and the Superintendent of the School of Handicrafts for Poor Boys in Chertsey, and his wife Mary Ellen, the School's Matron. Their oldest son was Andrew Kenneth Cosway Ottaway (1905-1980), a lecturer in Education at the University of Leeds. A younger son was Christopher Wyndham Ottaway (1910-1978), Research Professor of Veterinary Science at the University of Bristol from 1973 to 1975.

James Ottaway graduated from Imperial College London in 1929 and became a teacher. However, having become interested in acting while appearing in amateur dramatics, he left teaching to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Leaving in 1937, he made his stage debut in The Island at the Q Theatre. Also in 1937 he appeared in an early television production, Capital Punishment, broadcast by the BBC from Alexandra Palace.

He made his stage debut in 1937 as the Club Waiter in The Island at the Q Theatre, reprising the role at the Comedy Theatre in 1938. Later in 1937 Tyrone Guthrie, the director of The Old Vic, cast Ottaway as a Messenger alongside a young Laurence Olivier in the title role in Macbeth. Ottaway subsequently toured with the Old Vic company during 1940 and 1941.

After service in the British Army during World War II, Ottaway was demobbed in 1947 and resumed his theatrical career, playing Joseph Taft in Four Hours to Kill (Saville Theatre, 1948); Mr Wingate in Top of the Ladder (St James's Theatre, 1950); Dr Jadin in The Madwoman of Chaillot (St James's Theatre, 1951); Forshaw in His House in Order (New Theatre, 1951). From 1951 to 1955 he again appeared with Tyrone Guthrie and The Old Vic company, joining tours of South Africa in 1952 and Australia in 1955.

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