John McEnery

Who is John McEnery?

John McEnery is an English actor and writer.

Born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, he trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, playing, among others, Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone and Gaveston in Marlowe's Edward II. At the age of 20 he found his first stage work, spending three seasons with the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. He joined the National Theatre company in 1966. While working at the Everyman, he met actress Stephanie Beacham, whom he later married. The couple had two daughters, Phoebe and Chloe, but subsequently divorced.

His first notable screen role was in 1968 as Mercutio in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet; he was nominated for a BAFTA for his performance. In 1970 he starred in a major role alongside Claude Jade and Jean-Pierre Cassel in Gérard Brach's bittersweet The Boat on the Grass about a girl between two friends. He later played Russian politician Alexander Kerensky in Nicholas and Alexandra, and took the title role in the 1972 film Bartleby, in which he starred opposite Paul Scofield.

In the 1980s, at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, he took the title role in Gogol's The Government Inspector, directed by the Russian actor and director Oleg Tabakov.