John Standing

Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet (born 16 August 1934) is an English actor.

Biography

Early life

Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond (née Dorothy Katherine Standing), an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker.^[1] He is from a distinguished acting dynasty which includes his great-grandfather Herbert Standing (1846–1923) and his grandfather Sir Guy Standing (1873–1937). He was educated at Eton College and Millfield School, Somerset. He then served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant, before going to study at the Byam Shaw School of the Arts, London.

Career

Standing has worked productively on both the London and New York stage, with leading parts in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Ring Around the Moon, A Sense of Detachment by John Osborne, and Noel Coward's Private Lives, with Maggie Smith. He made his film debut in The Wild and the Willing (1962), going on to appear in King Rat (1965), The Psychopath (1966), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), Nightflyers (1987), Mrs. Dalloway (1997), and A Good Woman (2004).

One of his first major television role was as Sidney Godolphin in the BBC twelve part serial, The First Churchills (1969). Other television appearances include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979); the ITV sitcom The Other 'Arf (1980–84), with Lorraine Chase; The Choir (1995) and King Solomon's Mines (2004). In the U.S., he has made guest appearances in numerous weekly programmes including L.A. Law, Civil Wars and Murder She Wrote, and co-starred briefly with Robert Wagner and Samantha Smith in the action series Lime Street (1985). He has two connections to the works of American novelist George R.R. Martin, having appeared in the 1987 film Nightflyers adapted from a short story by Martin. In July 2010 it was confirmed that he would be appearing as Jon Arryn in the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.^[2]

Standing also appears on the tracks "Elements" and "Ramblin' Man" on electronica duo Lemon Jelly's album Lost Horizons.

Personal life

He succeeded his father as the 4th baronet in 1964. He does not use the title. The Leon family were, until 1937, owners of Bletchley Park, the country house in Buckinghamshire famous as the World War II Enigma code-breaking centre. He married Jill Melford in 1961, but they divorced in 1972. They have a son. In 1984 he married Sarah Kate Forbes, the daughter of film director Bryan Forbes and actress Nanette Newman and the sister of television presenter Emma Forbes. They have three children.