John Stride

Who is John Stride?

John Stride is an English actor best known for his television work during the 1970s.

Stride was born in London, the son of Margaret and Alfred Teneriffe Stride. He attended Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and trained at RADA, where he met his first wife, Virginia Stride.

He made his first, uncredited, screen appearance in the film, Sink the Bismarck!. He also played the role of Joe, the barman, in the film Bitter Harvest, based on the trilogy 20,000 Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton.

During the 1960s he appeared at the Old Vic as Romeo in Franco Zeffirelli's long-running production of Romeo and Juliet with Judi Dench, and also as Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 1. At the end of the 1960s he played Rosencrantz at the Old Vic, in Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

From 1969 to 1975 Stride played the television role with which he became most closely associated, that of a solicitor, David Main, in the ITV series The Main Chance.

In 1971 he played the role of Ross in Roman Polanski's film of Shakespeare's Macbeth. In 1978 he appeared in another successful ITV drama series, Wilde Alliance. He was cast as King Henry VIII in the BBC's production of Shakespeare's play about that monarch. He also played one of the leads in the BBC's adaptation of Kingsley Amis's novel The Old Devils in 1992.