Romilly Lunge
Romilly Lunge | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 October 1904 |
| Died | 1 August 1994 (aged 89) Leicestershire, United Kingdom |
| Other names | Ernest Romilly Maundrell Lunge |
| Occupation | Film actor |
[1] Lunge (1904–1994) was a British film actor. He made a total of 15 films and appeared in many stage plays between 1933 and 1940. He died in August 1994 in Leicestershire, England.
Biography
Lunge was born 4 October 1904 in London, England.
During World War II he served as an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and commanded a Fisheries Protection Vessel (ie an armed trawler, which were not the best equipped vessels to protect our vital fishing fleets against attack by U-Boats or enemy surface warships!)
A families personal testimony...
Hillcrest farm in Warton, North Warwickshire, was a rural place seemingly far removed from the bright lights of London and Milan.
For a while after the war however, the farm was home to film actor Romilly Lunge.
Ernest Romilly Maundrel Lunge was quite an interesting, but sometimes quite private person. But during the ‘70s after he’d moved to Ashby de la Zouch and lived a more relaxed lifestyle, he allowed me to chat with him many times about his former pre war life. About his acting on stage and then in the movies and learning to sing opera in the La Scala theatre in Milan.
The war, and earlier
He entered the war and joined the Royal Navy and having trained at various naval bases he left Loch Ewe in Scotland and ended up in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), working in the development of Anti-Submarine warfare and specifically sonar to better detect the German U-Boats.
He told me the future Prince Phillip visited the Navel Base in Ceylon under a shroud of secrecy once and Romilly had been instructed to show the Greek Prince some of the highly secret research and development in anti submarine warfare. Whilst based at Columbo he’d been invited to discrete cocktail soirées up the hill from the base. These were held by the famous celebrity staying on the island, none other than theatre and cinema actor/playwright Noèl Coward.
Romilly had acted and performed in films and on stage with quite a selection of well known actors and actresses before the war like Vivian Leigh, Lilli Palmer, Rex Harrison, George Arliss, Bruce Cabot, Enid Stamp Taylor and was interestingly called as a character witness in the sad demise of Miss Stamp-Taylor. He also became a romantic interest to the actress Margaretta Scott with skiing trips to Arosa in the Swiss Alps in the ‘30s and a lazy summer spent around the North Devon coast at Woolacombe Bay. He had also spent a year living in Milan in the latter half of 1929 and was voice trained briefly by the famous singer Caruso, then later with the younger Beniamino Gigli. He spent a year living in the spa town of Wiesbaden Germany in the early 30’s and that Hitchcock had once interviewed him for the movie “Secret Agent” and he had made a film with the Sir Gerald du Maurier studio company.
A changing Britain
After World War II he thought sadly that so many things had changed in war torn Britain and that the Swiss Alps had now been discovered and invaded by the A listers as we’d call them today. The innocence had gone, he’d grown up, I think he found his acting a bit tedious. Many fan letters from young admiring young women did follow him though.
A move to Warwickshire
I remember him thinking about a movie back in the day called “Owd Bob” 1924 and the book and that this story had inspired him to be a farm and land owner – he never shied away from work or duty. After his quite eminent and prestigious father had died before the end of World War II, his mother moved back from the family home at 19 Holland Park London to Ashby de la Zouch and took up residence there. So that brought Romilly to the vicinity and he chose the Hillcrest Farm, sister farm to Maypole Farm, as his home – just over the county in very fine Warwickshire. It was 100 acres or so and quite large for a single inexperienced landowner, so from 1947 to 1966 he ran the farm quite successfully. His mother died in, I think, 1948, so he hadn’t been there long. But he carried on and eventually sold up and moved to Ashby de la Zouch when I was around eight years old.
When we were growing up in the ‘60s, myself and my two brothers and parents spent time during school holidays down on the farm. One Easter morning was spent in the hen coop looking for hidden Easter eggs...
Other people remember Mr Lunge too... Following the declaration of peace and on discharge from naval duties he bought two adjacent farms in the village of Warton, near Atherstone, North Warwickshire and made his living as a mixed arable and dairy farmer. It was not until one of his films was shown on TV that the village became aware of his previous life.
I recall working for him after completing a course at Agricultural College and living in at Hill Crest Farm when he still had his cigarettes made for him with an initial 'L' on each one and ran a Rolls Royce 20/25 and Jaguar XK140 along with an MG TF. From this kind man I learned to appreciate classical music and to enjoy a lifelong pleasure in cooking. He even loaned me his weathered naval cap when I helped run a local Sea Scout troop based on the Coventry Canal. He later retired to the pleasant market town of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire.
Filmography
- The Perfect Flaw (1934)
- Road House (1934)
- The Dictator (1935)
- The Clairvoyant (1935)
- Koenigsmark (1935)
- His Lordship (1936)
- Annie Laurie (1936)
- A Woman Alone (1936)
- While Parents Sleep (1936)
- For Valour (1937)
- A Royal Divorce (1938)
- Sidewalks of London (1938)
- The Mind of Mr. Reeder (1939)
- Traitor Spy (1939)
- The Door with Seven Locks (1940)
Bibliography
- Low, Rachael. History of the British Film: Filmmaking in 1930s Britain. George Allen & Unwin, 1985 .
External links
https://vimeopro.com/ceevisk/romilly-lunge-stage-and-film-actor-1904-1994
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