In an article by Nancy Anderson in the Oxnard, California Press-Courier from March 13, 1977, Jory recalled, “I did both, because my mother and I were very poor and we needed all the money I could earn.” They came back to the US and he spent his childhood in Oregon and California, and then to Vancouver, where he juggled both acting and boxing. His mother was a newspaperwoman, and she and her son scraped by financially for many years. They separated at his birth (though Jory’s birthday is always listed as November 1902, there is some information supplied by his daughter, Jean Jory Anderson on a website dedicated to Jory family genealogy that her father was actually born the following April 1903, with some speculation as to his natural father).
He was born in Alaska and spent his babyhood in the Yukon where his parents had attempted, unsuccessfully, to try their luck during the Gold Rush. It had been, first, a hardscrabble childhood. Coast Guard) he held his own both in the ring, and out of it when provoked. In private life, he was much better able to handle Joel McCrea or anybody else. A champion amateur boxer, (and a champion wrestler as well as boxer while in the U.S. In his acting career, Jory noted in that article he had broken his collarbone twice, five ribs, a thumb and a toe, received numerous cuts and bruises. The poor guy was being bounced all over the barroom…” “Victor Jory, the mug they love to slug, was being pummeled by Joel McCrea when I visited the “South of St. He has taught me all I know about legitimate theatre.” Some actors are reticent when it comes to giving newcomers tricks of the trade. Jory has a vast amount of experience and he is willing to share it. Working with him is better than any training school of the theatre you ever heard of. Jory took another summer tour, this time with “Bell, Book and Candle.” From the Boston Daily Globe, June 28, 1953, Alexis credits Victor Jory, 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. He wrote plays, and directed.Ī year later, Miss Smith and Mr. He played Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere, and Shaw. It was a wonderful evening and the audience was capacity.”Īlexis Smith had minimal stage experience when she was in college, but Victor Jory had played stock theatre everywhere from his early apprenticeship at the Pasadena Playhouse to stages across the continent and as far as Australia. Jory, who seemed to enjoy every second of the sophisticated romp…The dialogue is light, witty and thoroughly naughty the acting should be on the same order. Running from September 22nd through the 24th, favorite character actors take center stage.įrom the Boston Daily Globe August 12, 1952: “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. This is my entry into the “What A Character” blogathon, sponsored by Outspoken and Freckled, Paula's Cinema Club, and Once Upon a Screen. His second home on stage is proof that not all Hollywood character actors are what they seem. On stage, he was urbane, witty, and devilishly charming. Hollywood had already typecast Jory as a scruffy villain. But it was an even more natural fit for Victor Jory, who had a much longer film career, and a much, much longer stage career. The sophisticate role was a natural for Miss Smith, who was typecast as such by Hollywood since her film career began some 12 years previously. In the summer of 1952 Victor Jory toured the eastern summer theatre circuit with Alexis Smith in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives”.