Michael Goodliffe

Biography

Lawrence Michael Andrew Goodliffe (1 October 1914 – 20 March 1976) was a prominent English actor celebrated for his roles as suave figures, including doctors, lawyers, and military officers, while also taking on working-class characters. Born in Bebington, Cheshire (now part of Merseyside), he was the son of a vicar and received his education at St Edmund's School in Canterbury and Keble College, Oxford.

Goodliffe began his acting career in repertory theatre in Liverpool before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the onset of World War II, he enlisted in the British Army, receiving a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in February 1940. He was later wounded and captured during the Battle of Dunkirk; mistakenly reported as killed, his obituary was published before he spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner in Germany.

During his captivity, Goodliffe creatively engaged fellow inmates by producing and acting in numerous plays, including two performances of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the first staging of Noel Coward's "Post Mortem." After the war, he returned to acting, making notable appearances in films like "The Wooden Horse" (1950) and "A Night to Remember" (1958), as well as in the television series "Sam" (1973–75) and "Inheritance" (1967).

Sadly, Goodliffe struggled with depression and, in 1976, tragically took his own life while a patient at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London, during rehearsals for a revival of "Equus."