Guy Newall | |
|---|---|
 Photographic portrait of Guy Newall, published in The Picture Show, 27 March 1920. | |
| Born | Guy Patrick Newall 25 May 1885 |
| Died | 25 February 1937 (aged 51) |
| Occupation(s) | Film actor, screenwriter, film director |
| Years active | 1915 - 1937 |
Guy Newall (25 May 1885 – 25 February 1937) was a British actor, screenwriter and film director in a career that encompassed the silent era of film-making to the early years of sound films.
Newall was a theatre actor who began his film career playing comic roles in the early years of World War I. He joined the war effort as an anti-aircraft gunner, where he met his future business partner George Clark. The heyday of Newall's career was in the post-war period to the early 1920s, where he, in a production company formed with Clark, directed, scripted and acted in the leading roles in a series of highly-regarded films. The actress Ivy Duke, who later became Newall's second wife, played opposite him in these films. During the mid- to late-1920s, with the British film industry in decline due to competition from America, Newall undertook theatre work, including a tour to South Africa, punctuated by an occasional film acting role. By the early 1930s, with the legislated requirement of a quota of British-made films, Newall was employed as both an actor and director in a series of low budget films known as 'quota quickies'. Newall's health began to decline from the mid-1930s and he died in February 1937.