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Anthony John Hawtrey (22 January 1909 – 18 October 1954) was an English actor and theatre director. He began his acting career in 1930 and had begun directing by 1939. As director of the Embassy Theatre in London, several of his productions transferred to the West End. During his theatre career, Hawtrey also acted in television and on film. He was a member of the Terry family of actors.
From 1930 Hawtrey worked as an actor in London, on tour in South Africa, and with the Liverpool Repertory Company.'Liverpool Repertory: Opening of the Twenty-third Season', The Stage, 7 September 1933, p. 12 He appeared as the King of France in the Old Vic's production of King Lear in 1931, when his cousin John Gielgud played Lear.'The Old Vic', The Times, 14 April 1931, p. 12 In 1939 he was director of productions at the Embassy Theatre in north London, subsequently becoming director at the Swindon Repertory Company. Hawtrey then became the second manager of the Dundee Repertory Theatre, succeeding Robert Thornley as Director of Productions in December 1940. He opened with a Christmas adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel,Robertson, Alec (1949), History of the Dundee Theatre, Precision Press, p. 42 and from 1940 to 1942 he directed and acted in over 40 plays in Dundee.
Of these, Worm's Eye View and No Room at the Inn enjoyed successful transfers to the West End, at the Whitehall and Winter Garden Theatres respectively, and were made into films.
In 1948 a third volume of Embassy Successes comprised
Further successes followed, among them the Sylvia Rayman play Women of Twilight, which proved a major hit for Hawtrey and the Embassy in 1951-52, transferring to both the Vaudeville Theatre and the Victoria Palace Theatre, and being made into a film.Tony Aldgate, 'Women of Twilight, Cosh Boy and the advent of the 'X' certificate', Journal of Popular British Cinema March 2000
Introducing the first two volumes of Embassy Successes, Hawtrey wrote: "Our policy is this. To present new plays dealing with today's world – in terms of entertainment. If these plays are written by new playwrights, so much the better. I am aware that the English theatre cannot properly thrive unless there is a constant supply of fresh dramatists. At the Embassy, we shall always do everything in our power to foster this supply."Anthony Hawtrey, foreword to Embassy Successes I and II, op cit Val Gielgud, in the third Embassy Successes book, praised Hawtrey's "persistent refusal to be deterred from experiment by difficulties of staging which too frequently have proved fatal to the chances of a play's production in the West End."Val Gielgud (ed.), Embassy Successes III, Sampson Low, Marston & Co 1948 According to the actor Leslie Phillips, Hawtrey "was a charming, easy-going man with a great sense of humour and a natural instinct for popular theatre."Leslie Phillips, Hello: The Autobiography, Orion Books (2006)
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