Robert Newton

Robert Newton

Born: June 1, 1905
Died: March 25, 1956
in Shaftesbury, Dorset, England
Robert Newton was one of the great character actors -- and great characters -- of the British cinema, best remembered today for playing Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950) and its sequel in 1954. His portrayal of Long John Silver and of Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952) created a persona that was so indelible that his vocal intonations created the paradigm for scores of people who want to "Talk Like a Pirate." The performance overshadows Newton's legacy, which is based on many first-rate performances in such movies as This Happy Breed (1944), Odd Man Out (1947) and Oliver Twist (1948), where his Bill Sykes is truly chilling. Oliver Reed, who played Sykes in the Oscar-winning movie musical Oliver! (1968) was influenced by Newton.

Movies for Robert Newton...

The Epic That Never Was
Title: The Epic That Never Was
Character: Captain of Caligula's guard
Released: September 19, 1969
Type: Movie
The story of the aborted 1937 filming of "I, Claudius", starring Charles Laughton, with all of its surviving footage.
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Title: Jingle All the Way! Christmas Stories Vol. 2
Released: December 13, 1957
Type: TV
A collection of three classic TV episodes; Date with the Angels, Adventures of Long John Silvers and Crossroads
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Title: The Adventures Of Long John Silver
Character: Capt. Long John Silver
Released: April 9, 1957
Type: TV
A TV series about the Long John Silver character from Treasure Island. It was made in 1954 in colour in Australia for the American and British markets before the development of Australian television. Long John Silver is the proud captain of his own ship and his own crew. He and his buccaneer cruise around the Caribbean and often stay on the side of the English and fight the French and Spanish. After the long and dangerous adventures, he and his crew rest in the tavern of Miss Purity. This series aired in the United States first on Syndicated basis in 1956, but not on a regular basis and completely random as part of another show. Several episodes were edited together and shown as movies in the cinemas under the titles: Under The Black Flag and South Sea Pirates. After that it was sold to the ITV Network in the UK, and aired in 1957. In 1958 Australian ABC screened the series as part of Children's TV Club show.
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Around the World in Eighty Days
Title: Around the World in Eighty Days
Character: Mr. Fix
Released: October 17, 1956
Type: Movie
Based on the famous book by Jules Verne the movie follows Phileas Fogg on his journey around the world. Which has to be completed within 80 days, a very short period for those days.
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Title: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Character: Peter J. Goodfellow
Released: October 2, 1955
Type: TV
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.
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Long John Silver
Title: Long John Silver
Character: Long John Silver
Released: December 16, 1954
Type: Movie
In this sequel to Treasure Island, Long John hopes to rescue his friend Jim from a rival pirate and return for more treasure.
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Title: Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
Released: October 27, 1954
Type: TV
Walt Disney Productions has produced an anthology television series under several different titles since 1954. The original version of the series premiered on ABC, Wednesday night, October 27, 1954. The same basic show has since appeared on several networks, with its latest revival debuting in 2012 on Disney Junior. The show is the second longest showing prime-time program on American television, behind its rival, Hallmark Hall of Fame. However, Hallmark Hall of Fame was a weekly program only during its first five seasons, while Disney remained a weekly program for more than forty years.
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Title: Climax!
Character: Keith Dorrant
Released: October 7, 1954
Type: TV
Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live.
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The Beachcomber
Title: The Beachcomber
Character: Ted Wilson
Released: August 10, 1954
Type: Movie
Mr. Gray is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life, but the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans, and the Honourable Ted - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.
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The High and the Mighty
Title: The High and the Mighty
Character: Gustave Pardee
Released: July 3, 1954
Type: Movie
Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.
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The Desert Rats
Title: The Desert Rats
Character: Tom Bartlett
Released: May 20, 1953
Type: Movie
In North Africa, German Field Marshal Rommel and his troops have successfully fended off British forces, and now intend to take Tobruk, an important port city. A ramshackle group of Australian reinforcements sent to combat the Germans is put under the command of British Captain MacRoberts. The unruly Aussies immediately clash with MacRoberts, a gruff, strict disciplinarian, however this unorthodox team must band together to protect Tobruk from the German forces.
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Title: General Electric Theater
Released: February 1, 1953
Type: TV
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.
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Blackbeard, the Pirate
Title: Blackbeard, the Pirate
Character: Blackbeard
Released: December 24, 1952
Type: Movie
Honest Robert Maynard finds himself serving as ship's surgeon under the infamous pirate Blackbeard.
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Androcles and the Lion
Title: Androcles and the Lion
Character: Ferrovius
Released: December 1, 1952
Type: Movie
George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.
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Les Miserables
Title: Les Miserables
Character: Etienne Javert
Released: August 14, 1952
Type: Movie
Jean Valjean, a Frenchman of good character, has nevertheless been convicted for the minor crime of stealing bread. A minor infraction leads to his pursuit by the relentless policeman Javert, a pursuit that consumes both men's lives for many years.
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Title: Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Character: Simon Mantle
Released: October 5, 1951
Type: TV
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.
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Title: Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Character: John Lindsey, the Baker
Released: October 5, 1951
Type: TV
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.
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Tom Brown's Schooldays
Title: Tom Brown's Schooldays
Character: Thomas Arnold
Released: April 17, 1951
Type: Movie
When Tom Brown arrives at Rugby boarding school, he’s mercilessly tormented by the school’s evil bully Flashman. With the help of his friend East, plucky Brown devises a plan to get back at Flashman; in the meantime, he’s asked to look out for a timid new student, whose life is accidentally put in peril during a school race.
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Soldiers Three
Title: Soldiers Three
Character: Pvt. Bill Sykes
Released: April 1, 1951
Type: Movie
Kiplingesque tale of British forces in 19th-century India.
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Title: Lux Video Theatre
Character: Mr. Fishkettle
Released: October 2, 1950
Type: TV
Lux Video Theatre is an American anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays.
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Title: Lux Video Theatre
Character: Philip Marshall
Released: October 2, 1950
Type: TV
Lux Video Theatre is an American anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays.
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Waterfront
Title: Waterfront
Character: Peter McCabe
Released: July 26, 1950
Type: Movie
When ship's fireman Peter McCabe walks out on his long-suffering wife, he leaves her impoverished, with two young daughters and a boy born soon after his departure. After an absence of fourteen years McCabe returns, sacked and humiliated, trailing trouble in his wake.
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Treasure Island
Title: Treasure Island
Character: Long John Silver
Released: July 19, 1950
Type: Movie
Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.
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Obsession
Title: Obsession
Character: Dr. Clive Riordan
Released: August 3, 1949
Type: Movie
A British psychiatrist devises a devilish revenge plot against his wife's lover.
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Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
Title: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
Character: Harry Carter
Released: October 30, 1948
Type: Movie
Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.
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Oliver Twist
Title: Oliver Twist
Character: Bill Sykes
Released: June 28, 1948
Type: Movie
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
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Snowbound
Title: Snowbound
Character: Derek Engles
Released: March 23, 1948
Type: Movie
Good and bad characters are stuck in a ski chalet near buried Nazi gold in the Alps.
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Temptation Harbour
Title: Temptation Harbour
Character: Bert Mallinson
Released: February 27, 1947
Type: Movie
The story of a harbor signalman who retrieves a suitcase full of money after witnessing a murder, fails to report it to the police, and finds himself the object of murderous and mercenary interest.
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Odd Man Out
Title: Odd Man Out
Character: Lukey
Released: January 30, 1947
Type: Movie
Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.
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Night Boat to Dublin
Title: Night Boat to Dublin
Character: Capt. David Grant
Released: January 8, 1946
Type: Movie
British intelligence officers head off a Nazi plot to kidnap an atomic scientist.
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Henry V
Title: Henry V
Character: Ancient Pistol
Released: November 24, 1944
Type: Movie
In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.
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This Happy Breed
Title: This Happy Breed
Character: Frank Gibbons
Released: May 28, 1944
Type: Movie
In 1919, Frank Gibbons returns home from army duty and moves into a middle-class row house, bringing with him wife Ethel, carping mother-in-law Mrs. Flint, sister-in-law Sylvia and three children. Years pass, with the daily routine of family infighting and reconciliation occasionally broken by a strike or a festival.
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They Flew Alone
Title: They Flew Alone
Character: Jim Mollison
Released: June 29, 1942
Type: Movie
The story of flyer Amy Johnson the girl from Yorkshire who won the hearts of the British public in the 1930s with her record-breaking solo flights around the world. Her marriage to fellow aviator Jim Mallison was less noteworthy.
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Hatter's Castle
Title: Hatter's Castle
Character: James Brodie
Released: February 2, 1942
Type: Movie
The year is 1880. On the outskirts of the fictional small Scottish town of Levenford there stands a strange building, half cottage, half castle, embraced with thick stone walls. The townsfolk nickname the fortress "Hatter's Castle", for James Brodie, the man who built it. Brodie is a hatter who keeps the members of the family in fear and submission; he is brutal, arrogant, selfish and cruel. His wife, who has long been ailing, and his daughter Mary, are in awe of him. His son Angus, aged 15, alone dear to his heart, suffers under his love as the others suffer under his sternness.
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Major Barbara
Title: Major Barbara
Character: Bill Walker
Released: May 14, 1941
Type: Movie
Idealistic young Barbara is the daughter of rich weapons manufacturer Andrew Undershaft. She rebels against her estranged father by joining the Salvation Army. Wooed by professor-turned-preacher Adolphus Cusins, Barbara eventually grows disillusioned with her causes and begins to see things from her father's perspective.
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Gaslight
Title: Gaslight
Character: Ullswater
Released: August 31, 1940
Type: Movie
Twenty years removed from Alice Barlow's murder by a thief looking for her jewels, newlyweds Paul and Bella Mallen move into the very house where the crime was committed. Retired detective B.G. Rough, who worked on the Barlow case, is still in the area and grows suspicious of Paul, who he feels bears a striking resemblance to one of Barlow's relatives. Rough must find the truth before the killer can strike again and reclaim his bounty.
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Busman's Honeymoon
Title: Busman's Honeymoon
Character: Frank Crutchley
Released: July 22, 1940
Type: Movie
When Lord Peter Wimsey marries Harriet Vane, a crime author, they both promise to give up crime for good. As a wedding present, Peter purchases the old house where Harriet grew up, but when they try to move in the previous owner is nowhere to be found, until they start to clean the house and find his body in the cellar...
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Channel Incident
Title: Channel Incident
Character: Tanner
Released: April 28, 1940
Type: Movie
During the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940, a young woman takes her motorboat to join the flotilla to rescue soldiers and also to search for her husband, a British soldier who was fighting in France and who may be among the troops waiting to be rescued.
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21 Days Together
Title: 21 Days Together
Character: Tolly
Released: January 7, 1940
Type: Movie
After Larry Darrent accidentally kills his lover's blackmailing husband, someone else is arrested for the crime. When he is found guilty, Larry and Wanda have just three weeks together before he must give himself up or let an innocent man go to the gallows.
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Hell's Cargo
Title: Hell's Cargo
Character: Cmdr. Tomasou
Released: December 16, 1939
Type: Movie
Adventure film directed by Harold Huth.
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Poison Pen
Title: Poison Pen
Character: Sam Hurrin
Released: July 3, 1939
Type: Movie
The inhabitants of a peaceful village begin receiving mysterious hate mail penned by someone with malicious thoughts.
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Jamaica Inn
Title: Jamaica Inn
Character: James "Jem" Trehearne
Released: May 11, 1939
Type: Movie
In coastal Cornwall, England, during the early 19th Century, a young woman who's come there to visit her aunt, discovers that she's married an innkeeper who's a member of a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecking and murder for profit.
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Dead Men Are Dangerous
Title: Dead Men Are Dangerous
Character: Aylmer Franklyn
Released: February 1, 1939
Type: Movie
Unsuccessful writer Aylmer Franklyn takes the chance to change identities after he discovers a corpse. However, he soon finds himself accused of the murder of a maid at a near-by boarding house.
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Vessel of Wrath
Title: Vessel of Wrath
Character: The Controleur
Released: March 4, 1938
Type: Movie
Ginger Ted, AKA Edward Claude Wilson, a drunkard and womanizer, and Miss Jones, a missionary, live in the Alas Islands. During a cholera epidemic, Ginger Ted and Miss Jones are sent to an outlying part of the islands to run a hospital; on their return, their motorboat breaks down, and they are marooned overnight on a small island.
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The Green Cockatoo
Title: The Green Cockatoo
Character: Dave Connor
Released: December 1, 1937
Type: Movie
A young girl is travelling to London to find work. Arriving at the station, she meets a man who has been stabbed by a member of a gang of crooks involved with greyhound racing. She becomes a suspect, but flees the scene in order to deliver a message to the dead man's brother. She is protected from the police by a night club entertainer, who she learns is the man she is seeking.
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The Squeaker
Title: The Squeaker
Character: Larry Graeme
Released: November 11, 1937
Type: Movie
London's jewel thieves are under the thumb of a mysterious fence, who ruthlessly exposes any thief who crosses him. Desperate, Scotland Yard re-hires ex-Inspector Barrabal who, as a known drunkard, is ideally suited to go undercover with a faked criminal record (which may spoil his chances with lovely Carol Stedman).
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Dark Journey
Title: Dark Journey
Character: Officer of U-Boat
Released: July 2, 1937
Type: Movie
Madeline Goddard, is a British double agent who meets and falls in love with a German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I. This tale of espionage blends high adventure and romance making perfect order from wartime chaos and growing in faith from despair.
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Fire Over England
Title: Fire Over England
Character: Don Pedro
Released: March 5, 1937
Type: Movie
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
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Farewell Again
Title: Farewell Again
Character: Jim Carter
Released: January 5, 1937
Type: Movie
Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.