In Memory of Actor Murray Melvin ('A Taste of Honey'): One Year After His Tragic Death

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It's been over a year since distinguished stage and screen actor Murray Melvin died at age 90 after a fall from which he never recovered. The British actor delivered a groundbreaking, poignant performance as Geoff, a gay character in the 1961 film adaptation of A Taste of Honey. The year after, he was awarded the Cannes Best Actor award, at a time when many movie stars were closeted and being gay was, in some sectors, considered a crime.

The Stage Was Set

As is the case with many British actors, Murray Melvin embraced the theatre.

He ignited his career with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop with behind-the-scenes work, such as "making tea and sweeping the stage."

By 1957, he became an assistant stage manager and then finally, made his acting debut in a stage production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

From there, Mevlin became a staple of the British theatre, performing in other Shakespeare plays such as Henry IV, as well as Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Oh, What a Lovely War, and several more.

Then Came Honey

In A Taste of Honey, Murray Melvin's Geoff, a homeless gay textile design student in 1960s Manchester, England, befriends Jo (Rita Tushingham), a pregnant unwed teen.

As journalist Armond White once explained on Out.com, Melvin as Geoff "enters the story as an odd bird, but he made movie history. [He] was the first movie character whom baby boomers of the period could immediately identify and relate to as openly queer. His out-front sensitivity should astound millennial viewers, too [courtesy of Criterion's Blu-ray release of the film]."

"Geoff's startling appearance is due to Melvin's oval face, aquiline nose, and penetrating eyes," White continued. "His Northern diction has an elegance that is recognizable as a voice that is deliberately developed and determined to be heard. His will is what's beautiful about the grim story of A Taste of Honey, a movie about the coming together of outsiders and their need for companionship."

Some fourteen years after appearing in A Taste of Honey, Murray Melvin portrayed quite a different role: Reverend Samuel Runt in Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 period film, Barry Lyndon.

In Print and Beyond

Also an author, Murray Melvine wrote two books: The Art of Theatre Workshop (2006) and The Theatre Royal: A History of the Building (2009).

Still acting into the 2000s and 2010s, he played Monsieur Reyer in the 2004 big-screen adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera; appeared in TV's Torchwood, a spin-off from Doctor Who and, in 2016, starred opposite Robert Pattison and Tom Holland in the movie, The Lost City of Z.

Lasting Impression

On-screen and off, Murray Melvin was a pioneer.