THE REAL
JOHN RHYS-DAVIES
About JOHN
Actor & Storyteller
I was conceived in Wales and my parents wanted me born there. But I arrived prematurely in Salisbury during an air raid. My mother famously said: ‘Good God Rhys, they’re going to bomb the gas works!'​ The heart’s birthplace is not necessarily geographical.
​
I was born a Welshman. I shall die one.
​My family moved to Africa when I was a small boy. We crossed the line on my 5th birthday in 1949 on the SS Medura. So, I went from a two-up, two-down working cottage to four acres, five servants and a colonial bungalow in Dar es Salaam , Tanganyika (now Tanzania). I had a very solitary, but magical, African upbringing contrasted with boarding school at Truro in Cornwall which I hated, but which did me immense good. It was a schizophrenic childhood.
​
Truro introduced me to drama. Shakespeare gave me the words to vent my adolescent rage. I moved from 'most delinquent new boy' ultimately to head boy and was a founder student at the University of East Anglia (105 students). I founded the Dramatic Society, took all the good parts, worked at the Madder Market Theatre, graduated, taught for a year then spent two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. I left RADA Sunday night, started work at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry Monday morning (July 27, 1969). Did 13 years in reparatory, the Royal Shakespeare Company and did a lot of good TV.
I got an Emmy nomination for my part in Shogun which led to Victor Victoria, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I spent the next 20 years in LA where an industry magazine at one point said I was the 44th busiest actor in Hollywood.
​
Eventually, I grew tired of big cities and, during a trip to the Isle of Man, on a whim bought an old Manx cottage which was my base for five or six years. I now have a larger house on the island and, when I’m not working, split my time between there and my home in New Zealand.
​
My firstborn son is Ben, who has just decided to go back to university to get a degree in mathematics. My second son, Tom, is a writer in Germany where he has a 12-year-old daughter, Anwen who is my only grandchild. My first wife Suzanne was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Following her death, I married TV presenter and journalist Lisa Manning in New Zealand. We have a 14-year-old daughter Maia, who has changed my life and my outlook on life quite radically.