Lloyd Reckord obit

Theatre veteran Lloyd Reckord passes

 

He was not on the list.

Internationally acclaimed theatre and film pioneer and practitioner Lloyd Malcolm Reckord died on Wednesday after a short illness. He was 86 years old.

The multitalented actor, director, producer, playwright and film-maker was born in Kingston on May 26, 1929, and began his theatre career with the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) pantomime at Ward Theatre. Noel Vaz was his first professional director.

Reckord's first big role was as Tobias in a production of Tobias and the Angel at the Garrison Theatre, Up Park Camp, when he was in his late teens. Fired from his job at his uncle's hardware store because he insisted that he had to leave early to play his role in the LTM pantomime, Alice In Wonderland, Lloyd left Jamaica in 1951 when he was 21 to join his brother Barry, also a playwright and actor, in England.

"There," he told this writer in a recent interview, "I got a job shovelling coal in Hammersmith at night. I remember this huge tub of water in which I and two other men who worked with the coal had to dip in to get clean before going to our various homes."

Following an audition, he got accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later joined the Old Vic Company, London. Years later, in the United States, he studied theatre at Howard University, Yale University and the American Theatre Wing. He received numerous awards in Jamaica for his own plays, including Justice, and for plays by others that he directed and produced.

At the end of his first school year, Reckord received "a magnificent offer" from Hugh Hunt, director of the London Old Vic, of tiny parts in The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet. At about the same time, Tyrone Guthrie, a very famous English director, asked Reckord to be in a production - again in a tiny role - that was going to the Edinburgh Festival.

"It was wonderful to be getting jobs for these prestigious organisations," Reckord said.

The small parts were followed by bigger ones. After leaving The Old Vic, Reckord got a part in the musical South Pacific at Drury Lane, which ran for several months. One of the plays that he performed in after the musical was Hot Summer Night, written by the playwright who became Lord Ted Willis. It was about a Jamaican boy falling in love with an English girl, the trade unionist's daughter.

"I got enormous publicity out of that play." Reckord said. "I remember in the Daily Express there was a half-page picture of me and the girl kissing. [It was also in The Star.] We toured for about six weeks all around England and we then came into the West End. It was an enormous break for me."

The stage play was then redone as a 90-minute television presentation for Sunday night theatre. Said Reckord: "That was an enormous boost for me, playing the lead in that television production. This was the beginning of me walking down the street and being recognised."

He got a chance to study in the USA and did so for two years before returning to England. There, several parts on the theme of a young black man being beaten up by 'Teddy Boys' (young thugs) because he was in love with a white girl came Reckord's way. He did about six for television, then started to get tired of it and feel homesick, he said.

Back in Jamaica, Reckord started the Actor's Theatre Company and produced Arthur Miller's The Crucible and W.G. Ogilvie's Star Boarder, which starred Buddy Pouyatt. He had just mounted Barry Reckord's play Della, with Lois Kelly Barrow, when Barry invited him to return to London to star in the Royal Court's production of the play then called Flesh to a Tiger. He closed the show and did just that.

He also branched out into film-making and made first Ten Bob in Winter then a more ambitious work, Dream A40, on the theme sexual guilt.

Back in Jamaica, Reckord founded the National Theatre Trust (NTT) and for the first production - without the government support he had hoped for - got together a board led by Michael Sloley, with Dr Aubrey Smith as chairman and Tony Gambrill as a director, and mounted Barry Reckord's drama You in Your Small Corner again.

More than 30 NTT productions followed. Under the aegis of the NTT, Reckord also started a short-lived Theatre for Schools programme, which involved tours of the island with a group of actors doing plays selected for Cambridge School Certificate exams.

Reckord also directed other productions, including for the LTM and Basil Dawkins Productions, and did some teaching at Excelsior High School and the School of Drama.

"It was very strenuous work," Reckord said. "One of the mistakes I made was not starting out with a team. It was me one doing everything in the productions."

Reckord's high standards for theatre are made clear in the programme for his multi-award winning 2002 production - The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman. His letter to potential supporters uses the perhaps politically incorrect phrase "quality theatre".

In a theatrical climate, which, he states, encourages our writers "to write not better, but more sensational plays" hoping to attract "mass audiences", his company, the NTT, was seeking "to revive quality theatre, set it on a solid foundation and make it viable".

Reckord was one of the pioneers honoured in July 2013 by London's National Theatre when it hosted Walk in the Light, a week of events celebrating the rich contribution of black artists to British theatre over the past 50 years.

He acted in Ted Willis' play, "Hot Summer Night", at the New Theatre in London, England with John Slater, Joan Miller, Andree Melly and Harold Scott in the cast. Peter Cotes was the director.

Reckord was born on May 26, 1929 in Kingston, Jamaica. He was an actor and director, known for Dream A40 (1965), ITV Television Playhouse (1955) and Ten Bob in Winter (1963). He died on July 8, 2015 in Jamaica.

 

Director

Dream A40 (1965)

Dream A40

6.7

Short

Director

1965

 

Ten Bob in Winter (1963)

Ten Bob in Winter

6.1

Short

Director

1963

 

Writer

Dream A40 (1965)

Dream A40

6.7

Short

Writer

1965

 

Ten Bob in Winter (1963)

Ten Bob in Winter

6.1

Short

Writer

1963

 

Actor

Third World Cop (1999)

Third World Cop

6.1

Reverend

1999

 

Bevin Fagin in Busker's Odyssey (1994)

Busker's Odyssey

TV Movie

Preacher in Jamaica

1994

 

The Lunatic (1991)

The Lunatic

6.2

The Judge

1991

 

CBS Children's Film Festival (1967)

CBS Children's Film Festival

8.6

TV Series

Jake

1977

1 episode

 

Stories Round the World

TV Series

Jake

1976

1 episode

 

Donald Pleasence and Betsy Blair in Love Story (1963)

Love Story

7.2

TV Series

Patterson

1967

1 episode

 

Errol John and Gemma Jones in Rainbow City (1967)

Rainbow City

TV Series

Mark AndrewsMark

1967

2 episodes

 

Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves in Court Martial (1965)

Court Martial

7.2

TV Series

Private Joe Buxton

1965

1 episode

 

Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Martine Beswick, Luciana Paluzzi, and Molly Peters in Thunderball (1965)

Thunderball

6.9

Pinder's Assistant (uncredited)

1965

 

Diane Cilento in Blackmail (1965)

Blackmail

7.2

TV Series

Geoffrey

1965

1 episode

 

Patrick McGoohan in Secret Agent (1964)

Secret Agent

8.2

TV Series

KandaBarman

1964–1965

2 episodes

 

Herbert Lom in The Human Jungle (1963)

The Human Jungle

7.9

TV Series

Jeff Broadley

1964

1 episode

 

John Thaw in Redcap (1964)

Redcap

7.9

TV Series

Colonel Mahadi

1964

1 episode

 

Ten Bob in Winter (1963)

Ten Bob in Winter

6.1

Short

Narrator (voice)

1963

 

Patrick Allen in Crane (1963)

Crane

7.8

TV Series

Fesain

1963

1 episode

 

ITV Play of the Week (1955)

ITV Play of the Week

6.7

TV Series

Dave Jordan

1962

1 episode

 

Drama 61-67 (1961)

Drama 61-67

7.5

TV Series

Alajo

1961

1 episode

 

Adam Faith and Sidney James in What a Whopper (1961)

What a Whopper

5.2

Jojo

1961

 

Storyboard

5.6

TV Series

James

1961

1 episode

 

Moira Lister in Somerset Maugham Hour (1960)

Somerset Maugham Hour

7.4

TV Series

Jose

1961

1 episode

 

Patrick McGoohan in Danger Man (1960)

Danger Man

7.9

TV Series

BartenderBarman

1960

2 episodes

 

No Hiding Place (1959)

No Hiding Place

7.4

TV Series

Milton MacLelland

1960

1 episode

 

Interpol Calling (1959)

Interpol Calling

7.1

TV Series

Sgt. Christie

1960

1 episode

 

Armchair Theatre (1956)

Armchair Theatre

7.6

TV Series

EdmundSonny Lincoln

1959

2 episodes

 

Probation Officer (1959)

Probation Officer

6.7

TV Series

Johnny Alexander

1959

1 episode

 

Sapphire (1959)

Sapphire

7.2

Pianist in International Club (uncredited)

1959

 

ITV Television Playhouse (1955)

ITV Television Playhouse

8.2

TV Series

Jim HarrisLuke

1959

2 episodes

 

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre

7.3

TV Series

John Alexander

1959

1 episode

 

The Blazing Caravan (1954)

The Dark Stairway

7.1

Short

Guitar Player (uncredited)

1954

 

Cesar Romero, Kay Kendall, and Simone Silva in The Shadow Man (1953)

The Shadow Man

6.0

Arcade customer (uncredited)

1953

 

Producer

Dream A40 (1965)

Dream A40

6.7

Short

producer

1965

 

Ten Bob in Winter (1963)

Ten Bob in Winter

6.1

Short

producer

1963