Hay Petrie

From Dundee, Tayside, Scotland, UK • 1895 - 1948

David Hay Petrie (16 July 1895 – 30 July 1948) was a Scottish actor noted for playing eccentric characters, among them Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop (1934), the McLaggen in The Ghost Goes West (1935) and Uncle Pumblechook in Great Expectations (1946). Hay Petrie was born in Dundee, Angus, Scotland, the son of Jessie and David Mathew Petrie, a decorator. He went to Harris Academy and later attended St Andrew's University, where he first discovered the stage. In 1915, he joined the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) as a second lieutenant. After the war, he studied with Rosina Filippi, joining the Old Vic Company appearing as "Starveling" in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1920. In 1924 Albert de Courville brought Hay Petrie into vaudeville with The Looking Glass, in which he sang "Oh Shakespeare you're the best of all but you can't fill the fourteen shilling stall". His first film part was Many Waters in 1931. In 1928 he married Muriel Eleanor Gwendolen Stevens (1904-). During World War II he was an ARP warden. Hay Petrie struggled with alcoholism, but was much loved by audiences and players. He was never more at home than when he was playing parts from the classical theatre, and for many he was the Shakespearean Clown of the early 1920s. He died in London in July 1948, aged 53. (Via Wikipedia)