In the summer of 1952, Victor Jory toured the eastern summer theatre circuit with Alexis Smith in Noel Coward’s Private Lives. Hollywood had always typecast Alexis as a sophisticate, but the play was a departure for Jory, who had nearly always been tagged as a scruffy villain. On stage, he was urbane, witty, and devilishly charming.

The Boston Daily Globe (August 12, 1952) noted: “The Boston Summer Theatre may be air-cooled but it sizzled last night with the heat engendered by Victor Jory kissing decorative Alexis Smith in that famous second act of Private Lives…I never saw…quite as much vigor and passion as Miss Smith and Mr. Jory, who seemed to enjoy every second of the sophisticated romp…”

Alexis Smith had minimal stage experience in college, but Victor Jory had played stock everywhere across the continent and as far as Australia. He played Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere, and Shaw. He also wrote plays, and directed.

A year later, Alexis and Jory took another summer tour, this time with Bell, Book and Candle. The Boston Daily Globe (June 28, 1953) notes Alexis credits Victor, who directed, for teaching her stagecraft: “I can’t believe that anyone in the whole world could have taught me as much as Victor has about my job. Working with him is better than any training school of the theatre you ever heard of. Mr. Jory has a vast amount of experience and he is willing to share it...Victor is generous and kind. He has taught me all I know about legitimate theatre.”
   
When she first met Jory, she had a different impression. This was on the set of her film South of St. Louis (1949). He played a nasty villain. She thought him a “rather horrible person” who was, “dirty, bewhiskered and wearing baggy pants.”

This had become Jory’s fate by the 1940s. Syndicated Hollywood columnist Bob Thomas noted: “Victor Jory, the mug they love to slug, was being pummeled by Joel McCrea when I visited the South of St. Louis set. The poor guy was being bounced all over the barroom…”

Jory noted in that 1948 article in his film career he had broken his collarbone twice, five ribs, a thumb and a toe, received numerous cuts and bruises. In private life, he was much better able to handle Joel McCrea or anybody else. He was a champion amateur boxer, and a champion wrestler as well while in the U.S. Coast Guard.

He had a hardscrabble childhood, raised by a single mother. He helped support them by acting — and boxing. In a 1977 article, Jory recalled, “I could get $7.50 a week fighting…Then I could run over to the theater and do my walk-on and get another $1.50 a night.” The boxing matches started at 7:30 in the evening, and the theater curtain rose at 8:30. It was a tight squeeze between ring time and curtain time.

He met his future wife, actress Jean Inness, in a stock company. They were married 50 years until her death in 1978. They appeared together on stage on many occasions.

In his early film career he had a few opportunities to play a romantic lead, but hero roles were for the most part denied him. We are fortunate to have A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) as an example of Jory’s Shakespearean talents. He is the masterful Oberon in one of Hollywood’s unusual forays into an artistic film rather than a purely commercial one. His voice is perfect for Shakespeare; with precise intonation and resonant pitch such as actors develop only with stage experience.

Jory appeared in hundreds of stage shows, TV and radio programs, and films. He also wrote a travel column. His passions were fishing, and collecting recipes; Jory was a gourmet cook. One wonders if Alexis Smith, who later became a gourmet cook and collector of recipes herself, was as inspired by Victor Jory in cooking as she was in theatre.

After South of St. Louis, Alexis and Victor Jory worked on one more film together, Cave of Outlaws (1951), where he plays yet another villain. Here they got to know each other and formed the plan of working on stage together. Private Lives, followed by Bell, Book and Candle was the result. To moviegoers, Jory may have been the grimy saddle tramp, but to stage audiences he was the star.

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time: Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century, available online at Amazon, CreateSpace, and the author. Website: www.JacquelineTLynch.com.