Acting

John Boswall

Born 1920-05-02 · Oxfordshire, England, UK

John Boswall (2 May 1920 – 6 June 2011) was a British actor known for playing Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984 and Wyvern in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Boswall was born John Stuart on 2 May 1920 in Oxfordshire, England. Prior to his career as an actor, he attended the University of Oxford and served in Burma during World War II. Boswall's television appearances included Paul Temple (1971), Wessex Tales (1973), Lady Killer (1973), Edward the Seventh (1975), The Onedin Line (1976), Love in a Cold Climate (1980), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982), Sapphire & Steel (1982), No Place Like Home (1986), EastEnders (1990, 2002), Selling Hitler (1991), Agatha Christie's Poirot (1991), Drop the Dead Donkey (1993), Lovejoy (1993), Poldark (1996), Doctors (2000), Rome (2005) and Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (2006). Stage appearances included Edward Bond's The Fool at the Royal Court Theatre (1975),[2] Sweeney Todd at the Little Theatre, Bristol (1978–79); Oh, What A Lovely War!, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1979–80), and Kiss Me, Kate (1980–81) at the Bristol Old Vic; Henry IV, Part I (1984–85) at the Theatre Royal, Bath; Doctor Faustus (1974), Cymbeline (1974) and Camille (1985–86) with the Royal Shakespeare Company;[3] and Moliere's Bourgeois gentilhomme (1992) at the Royal National Theatre. His films included Nineteen Eighty-Four as Emmanuel Goldstein (1984), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), The Wind in the Willows (1996), The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), Hotel Splendide (2000), Ladies in Lavender (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Morris: A Life with Bells On (2009).

Acting credits

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest poster
7.4

Captain Jack Sparrow’s got a blood debt to pay: he owes his soul to the legendary Davy Jones, ghastly Ruler of the Ocean Depths. To escape eternal servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman, ever-crafty Jack must track down the still-beating heart of Jones. But he won’t do it alone: Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are drawn back into another one of his perilous quests—assuming they can evade execution for aiding a pirate.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

2006

Nineteen Eighty-Four poster
6.8

Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship -- and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

1984

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc poster
6.4

In 1429, a French teenager stood before her King with a message she claimed came from God; that she would defeat the world's greatest army and liberate her country from its political and religious turmoil. As she reclaims God's diminished kingdom, this courageous young woman has various amazing victories until her violent and untimely death.

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc

1999

3 Men and a Little Lady poster
5.8

Sylvia's work increasingly takes her away from the three men who help bring up Mary, her daughter. When she decides to move to England and take Mary with her, the three men are heartbroken at losing the two most important women in their lives.

3 Men and a Little Lady

1990

Ladies in Lavender poster
6.4

Andrea, a gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. When the Widdington sisters discover the handsome stranger on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of Ursula and Janet and the community in which they live.

Ladies in Lavender

2004

The Statement poster
5.7

An ambitious Judge and an exacting Colonel re-open the sixty-year-old case of Pierre Brossard, an escaped Nazi collaborator accused of murdering seven Jews. Now an old man living a sheltered life within the Catholic Church, Brossard is also being trailed by mysterious hit men, determined to kill him before he's arrested.

The Statement

2003

Casanova poster
4.1

The life story of an 18th century womanizer who's arrested, not so much for his crimes, but because he's viewed as an undesirable by the husbands and families of the women he seduces.

Casanova

1987

Poldark poster
6.8

The Cornish military captain, now a member of Parliament, is drawn into the war with France while his son falls in with smugglers. Historical drama, starring John Bowe and Mel Martin, and featuring a young Ioan Gruffudd in one of his earliest roles.

Poldark

1996

The Wind in the Willows poster
5.7

Jailed for his reckless driving, rambunctious Mr. Toad has to escape from prison when his beloved Toad Hall comes under threat from the wily weasels, who plan to build a dog food factory on the very meadow sold to them by Toad himself.

The Wind in the Willows

1996

Stiff Upper Lips poster
5.6

Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Although it specifically targets A Room with a View, Chariots of Fire, Maurice, A Passage to India, and many other films, in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits: propriety, sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.

Stiff Upper Lips

1998

A Hazard of Hearts poster
7.8

In a desperate bid to cover his debts, compulsive gambler Sir Giles Staverley stakes his estate and his daughter's hand on a game of chance. Serena Staverley soon finds herself bound to a mysterious victor and trapped in a cliff-top manor.

A Hazard of Hearts

1987

The Life Story of Baal poster
10.0

An adaptation of the first play written by Bertolt Brecht, charting the decline and fall of Baal, a young poet who rejects the norms of society and destroys the lives of the people with whom he comes into contact.

The Life Story of Baal

1978

Lady Killer poster
6.8

A shy, lonely American girl marries a charming man she meets while on vacation in England, unaware that he has sinister plans for her.

Lady Killer

1973

Morris: A Life with Bells On poster
6.5

The film follows the fortunes of an avant garde Morris team in their struggle to evolve Morris Dancing.

Morris: A Life with Bells On

2009

Hotel Splendide poster
5.7

A chef seeks reconciliation with her brother by helping him run a decaying resort and health spa.

Hotel Splendide

2000

No artwork available
7.0

They're bringing Las Vegas closer than you ever imagined.

Ca$hino

2001

No artwork available
3.3

Jessie Fielding is a young MP who is trying to get an anti-hunting bill through the two Houses of Parliament, which is a little surprising as she hunted as a teenager with friend Barb Gale. Matters are complicated when she rekindles her friendship with Barb, who still works for a hunt. The plot thickens further when it becomes aparent that the House of Lords is likely break with convention and block the bill, an event which the Prime Minister hopes to use for his own ends.

Giving Tongue

1996

No artwork available
NR

When their infant son is brain-damaged during surgery, Jane and Phillip Elliot seek information on how it happened and meet resistance from those unable or unwilling to help. Finding themselves helpless, they turn to the law.

Wednesday's Child

1979

The Trial of Klaus Barbie poster
NR

Decades after the end of World War II, escaped war criminal Klaus Barbie is brought to justice.

The Trial of Klaus Barbie

1987

Sakharov poster
7.5

Biography of Russian physicist & dissident Andrei Sakharov focuses on his first acts in his civil rights.

Sakharov

1984

Sitting Targets poster
NR

Who has bought the house which is the home for a dozen flat dwellers? When the heating fails and a flat is violently repossessed, things begin to look hopeless. But the tenants begin to fight back...

Sitting Targets

1989