Leonard Whiting
Early life[edit]
Whiting was born on 30 June 1950,[3] in Wood Green, moving with his two sisters to Holloway, another area of North London, England. The only son of Peggy Joyce (O'Sullivan) and Arthur Leonard Whiting, he has English, Irish and some Romani ancestry. Whiting's love of performing was encouraged at his local Church and Primary School, St Josephs R.C Highgate, where he and sister Linda acted in the school's nativity plays. Leonard went on to attend St. Richard of Chichester School, Camden Town, leaving in 1967, before his 17th birthday, to begin work on Romeo and Juliet (1968).[4][5][6][7][8]
Career[edit]
Whiting had some success as a child singer, almost winning Butlin's Talent Contest (he came second) hosted in the holiday camp's packed out Gaiety Theatre.[9] Whiting was later spotted by a theatrical agent at the Connaught Rooms Holborn, where he was performing at a Jewish wedding at the age of 12. He only sang one song ("Summertime") which he had rehearsed as a one-off song with the group Teal Lewis and the Fourtunes, who provided the evening's entertainment. This appearance, was set up by his father to get him noticed. After hearing him sing, the agent suggested he try out for Lionel Bart's Oliver! which constantly needed replacements for its child performers.[9] Whiting played the Artful Dodger in the long-running London musical for 15 months, and for 13 months in 1965–1966 appeared at Laurence Olivier's National Theatre in the production of William Congreve's Love for Love opposite Olivier, which toured Moscow and Berlin.[10][11][12]
Director Franco Zeffirelli described his discovery, from 300 youngsters who had auditioned over a period of more than three months as: "He has a magnificent face, gentle melancholy, sweet, the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be."[9] Olivier did an uncredited narration in the 1968 production of Romeo and Juliet for Zeffirelli.
He played the male lead, opposite Jean Simmons in the 1971 film,[13] Say Hello to Yesterday, a romantic comedy, filmed on location in and around London, set over one day, with him pursuing a bored housewife, twice his age storyline. In 1973, he played the title role in the made-for-TV film Frankenstein: The True Story alongside an all-star cast that included James Mason, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Jane Seymour, Agnes Moorehead and David McCallum.
In the mid-1970s, his voice caught the attention of Abbey Road and The Dark Side of the Moon engineer Alan Parsons, who was in the process of recording what was to be the first album by the Alan Parsons Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Whiting performed lead vocals on the song "The Raven"[14] and also narrated "To One in Paradise".
Whiting was cast as the Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London's Westminster Theatre between 27 November 1978 and 17 January 1979. This was a Ken Hill production with the Pharaoh played by Whiting in the style of Elvis Presley.[15][16]
In 1990, Whiting provided the voice of the Urpney scientist Urpgor in the children's animated television series The Dreamstone.[17] After voicing the character for three seasons, he was replaced by Colin Marsh for the fourth and final season.
In 2014, he reunited professionally with his friend Olivia Hussey for Social Suicide (2015), their first film together in the 46 years since the Franco Zeffirelli production of Romeo and Juliet.[18]