ObituaryRobert Lang
Versatile actor noted for his stylish integrityWhen he began work as the first artistic director of the National Theatre, Laurence Olivier drew up a list of his actors who were "renowned" or "to be renowned". Robert Lang, who has died of cancer aged 70, was in the second category, along with Frank Finlay, Lynn Redgrave, Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi.
From 1963 until 1970, when he took over Olivier's role of Shylock in Jonathan Miller's production of The Merchant Of Venice, Lang was a stalwart at the National. He hovered in status between lead, lead support, and character actor, always a distinctive and reliable presence with a comic edge, a twinkling eye and a rich baritonal voice.
He took a wide range of roles, from the reluctant judge, Peter Cauchon, in Shaw's Saint Joan, to the righteous Reverend Hale in Arthur Miller's The Crucible and a mincing Scandal (a favourite role) in Congreve's Love For Love. He was a baffled Roderigo to Olivier's tumultuous Othello, and a resolute Kurt, second side of a dangerous triangle, with Geraldine McEwan holding the ring, to Olivier's astounding Captain in Strindberg's The Dance Of Death; both productions were filmed.
Joan Plowright, Lady Olivier, who played the National's Saint Joan and Portia, described the actor as "the backbone of the British theatre: experienced, talented, slightly eccentric and extremely lovable. Larry relied upon him to an enormous degree. He had such relish of language and a very fine mind."
Lang may have been disappointed that he never really made the big time. He made countless films (Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994) and Ken Russell's Savage Messiah (1972) among the best known) and quality television series (the recent remake of The Forsyte Saga, Our Mutual Friend, A Dance To The Music Of Time), but never really converted his National Theatre pre-eminence on to the screen.
He seemed to be a cut above roles such as the police inspector he played in The First Great Train Robbery (1978), with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, and the government minister in the intense Some Mother's Son (1996), with Helen Mirren and Aidan Gillen. He brought more than just "authority" to these performances; he radiated gravitas and a stylish integrity.
But he was good at crooks, too, notably the spurious antiques collector Colonel Barber he played in an episode of Heartbeat in 2002, and the blustery ex-policeman father of a coquettish Felicity Kendal, one of his last stage roles, in Peter Hall's production of a Feydeau farce, Mind Millie For Me, at the Haymarket in 1996. His was a performance that unforgettably combined "deference and greed", according to Michael Billington.
Robert Lang was born in Bristol and educated at Fairfield grammar school and St Simons church school. Formerly a meteorologist, he trained at the Bristol Old Vic school and made his professional debut with the Bristol Old Vic company as the doctor in Eric Porter's first King Lear in 1956. His West End debut was as Uncle Ernest in the Vic's transfer of Oh! My Papa at the Garrick in 1957.
Over the next few years in repertory in Bristol, Nottingham and Canterbury, he played Chekhov's Platonov (another favourite), Polonius in No Bed For Bacon by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin, Charles Condomine in Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer and both Othello and Richard III. He appeared briefly with both the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962.
In The Royal Hunt Of The Sun (1964) at the National, he shared a lively dressing room with Colin Blakely and Robert Stephens. They had, said Stephens in his memoirs, "a little wooden mouse, and when the mouse was on your place, you had to send out for six bottles of Guinness". On matinee and evening days, that mouse travelled round like a creature demented: "Everything we drank was lost in sweat."
Lang had been a founder director, with David Conville, of the New Shakespeare Company at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park in 1962 and, after his time at the National, he directed a charming Twelfth Night in 1973 and played Bottom twice ("His 'awakening' speech was the best ever," in the opinion of Ian Talbot, the current artistic director) and Falstaff in Alan Strachan's entertaining revival of The Merry Wives Of Windsor in 1999. When not acting, he was a fixture at first nights in the park, a dapper figure in a well-cut summer suit with buttonhole.
His last film, to be released next year, was Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont, directed by Dan Ireland. Joan Plowright plays the title role in a film in which a gallery of fine actors - Anna Massey, Millicent Martin, Marcia Warren, Anna Carteret and Georgina Hale - are joined by Lang as Mr Osborne, who proposes, touchingly, on bended knee, to Mrs Palfrey.
"He was a little tired towards the end of the shoot," said Ireland, "but his performance is astonishing and beautiful. The proposal scene is so funny and touching. He was the most lovely man, one of the finest gentlemen I've ever met."
He is survived by his wife, the actor Ann Bell, and their adopted son and daughter.
· Robert Lang, actor, born September 24 1934; died November 6 2004
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