2 hours ago
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My father, Gregory de Polnay, who has died aged 82, was an actor, director, voice teacher and performance coach.
In all he had more than 100 television and 350 radio broadcasts to his name, most notably as detective sergeant Mike Brewer in the Dixon of Dock Green TV series in 1974-75. He also appeared alongside Peggy Ashcroft in his own touring production of You Can’t Shut Out the Human Voice at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, west London, in 1984. In the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death he provided the voice of D84.
Greg was born in Chelsea, London, to the Hungarian novelist Peter de Polnay and his wife, Margaret Mitchell-Banks, an artist, illustrator and fashion model. He always said that his godfather, the poet Dylan Thomas, rather than his father, introduced him to literature, and credited watching Laurence Olivier’s powerful theatre performances with imbuing in him a desire to work on the stage.
After attending Blackfriars school in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, he studied at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts (Lamda) before following a career in the theatre.
Like many actors, Greg endured many years of professional insecurity as a result of his trade. In 1987, after a serious fall from a tall stage ladder while playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Colorado Shakespeare festival in the US, he had the opportunity to rethink his career while undergoing a lengthy recovery process in hospital, and decided he should pursue more security by retraining as a teacher.
Subsequently he studied for an advanced diploma in voice studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, followed by a performance studies MA at King’s College London, and in 1988 he was appointed head of voice at the Drama Centre in London, before taking on a similar role at Lamda from 1994 to the early 2000s. In tandem, he was a teacher and director at Rada from late 1990 until 2010.
Greg also translated his background in teaching and performance into freelance corporate coaching (under the name GdeP Associates), helping business people with their vocal delivery and body language.
In later life Greg spent much of his time at his French home near Cognac with his second wife, Candice (nee White), an executive assistant, whom he married in 1998. There he performed some of his finest work with multiple readings of the Tiger Who Came to Tea to his grandsons Jeno and Toby.
He is survived by Candice, by two children, Kirrily and me, from his first marriage, to Anna (nee Bowden), which ended in divorce in 1985, and by Jeno and Toby.
