Profile: Douglas Ford

Loft credits (click a play title to view details)

• Cardinal Wolsey, A Man for All Seasons (1963)
• Man, Two of a Trade (1944)
• George Woodbury, Burning Gold (1943)
• Geoffrey March, Windows (1941)
• Valentine, You Never Can Tell (1940)
• Joseph, By Candlelight (1936)
• Dr Blenkinsop, The Doctor’s Dilemma (1935)
• Sir Robert Carslake, Yellow Roses (1934)
• Director, The Immortal Memory (1934)
• Mr Tamplin, Emily’s Castle (1933)
• Thariel, The Man Who Wouldn’t Go to Heaven (1933)
• Giacomo, The Cenci (1933)
• Stephan, The Waters of Forgetfulness (1933)
• Duke of Florence, All’s Well That Ends Well (1932)
• Silvio, The Servant of Two Masters (1932)
• Giuliano de’ Medici, The Cardinal (1932)
• Arnold Champion-Cheney, MP, The Circle (1931)

Notes

Douglas Ford was the Loft’s treasurer for 42 years and our stage director for 13 years. The Leamington Courier issue of 19 October 1979 featured an article about the official opening of the Douglas Ford Studio, in which Douglas’s widow, Christine Ford, paid tribute to him:

Quite simply he loved this place and took an immense pride in it. He knew every stick and stone of it – as he did of all our previous premises. He played a leading part in the purchase of our first theatre on this site and I well remember the effort he put in during the rebuilding of more than half the theatre after the first fire in 1958.

I remember even more vividly the morning when our second fire was still burning and Madge Robinson telephoned the news and just kept on saying: “It’ll kill Douglas. It’ll kill Douglas”.

Well, it didn’t kill Douglas and he entered into the building of the new theatre with enormous enthusiasm and skill in launching the appeal and managing the finances, with the help of a wise and cooperative committee and finance committee, but Douglas did most of the day to day donkey work.

He was here virtually every day – often several times a day – while the building proceeded, ironing out small difficulties or cracking a joke with workmen, all of whom he knew by their Christian names. He was always around to encourage them with some of his own enthusiasm.

Douglas would be so happy to be associated with this room, the rehearsal room, where so many ideas are born, where inspiration burgeons into life, where many of our younger members to whom he was devoted have their first acting experience and where our Loft Extras give so much pleasure to our members.

Truly this is a place throbbing with vivid life. Long may the activities which take place here flourish and keep green the memory of Douglas Ford.

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