For more than 40 years Larry Dalzell managed the affairs of some the leading actors of the British stage and screen. He built up a deserved reputation for the care and attention he took with each of his clients, on purpose restricting his list so that he could provide a very personal service and be involved with each project a client undertook. He spent many weekends reading scripts that had come in with offers of work and his advice as to whether a client should accept a role was concise, balanced and thought-through with an intuitive foresight. Dalzell was a keen judge of an actor’s ability and seemed to know instinctively how to best guide his or her career, whether his client was established or just out of drama school.
Lawrence Dalzell (always Larry) was born in Glasgow and demonstrated a keen interest in the theatre from an early age. He often performed as a child actor at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre while still attending Jordanhill College School. In 1949 Dalzell played Fleance at the theatre (with Stanley Baxter as Lennox) in Macbeth with Duncan Macrae as the king. Unfortunately Macrae broke a leg during rehearsals and the theatre’s artistic director, John Casson (son of Sybil Thorndike), had to rapidly learn the role. When Macrae did return to the production he was assisted to the stage by Dalzell and Baxter, nightly mumbling (loudly), “I can’t get into this bloody king with a plaster.”
Dalzell, aged 14, had applied to the Wilson Barrett Company (who then toured throughout Scotland) for a job. Despite saying he was older he was told to return the following year. Unperturbed, and displaying a resilience and tenacity he was to demonstrate throughout his life, Dalzell set up his own company of youngsters who toured Glasgow schools with the box office receipts going to local charities. In the book on the Wilson Barrett Company a memo is printed written by a director who saw the show: “This young man is going to be a star. He is always in a solo spotlight.”
Dalzell did return the following year and made his professional debut as the Player Queen in Hamlet. He was to spend many years with the company alongside such future stars as Geoffrey Palmer, Edith Macarthur, John Mackenzie (obituary, June 21, 2011) and Elizabeth Sellars. Dalzell was also on a notable tour in the Borders with Tom Fleming playing Robert Burns. Seasons followed at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh before he went to London to work as an actor.
In 1962 Dalzell was offered a post in the Denis van Thal agency and then worked with London Management. In 1966 he set up on his own (Larry Dalzell Associates) and among his first clients were Edith Macarthur and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. Later his list expanded to include Alec McCowan, Sir Michael Gambon, Dame Eileen Atkins, John Castle, Jason Robards, Edward Fox, the designer David Walker and the directors Peter Dews and Ronald Eyre. More recently Dalzell managed Ralph Fiennes, Ciaran Hinds, Natasha Richardson, Tim Woodward and many more.
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Dalzell provided a personal management to each client, scrupulously seeing plays in preview and talking through any problems with his client. He also attended the drama schools’ graduation performances and had a reputation for his integrity and cool but determined manner of negotiating contracts.
Dalzell took a particular interest guiding the early career of young actors and encouraged them not necessarily to go straight into a national company but to gain good stage experience in a regional theatre whose director Dalzell often knew well. He always attended first nights but seldom went to the party afterwards: a quick congratulations in the dressing room and a more reasoned appraisal the next day was more his style. The fact that few clients ever left his management is a testament to his shrewd skills, total honesty and engaging personality.
Away from the office Dalzell was a great lover of opera and ballet, attending performances often at Covent Garden and at the Metropolitan Opera when visiting clients on Broadway.
He was a passionate reader and collector of pictures and maintained his encyclopaedic memory of casts, anecdotes and theatrical facts. His stories of past friends were always endearing but told with a dignified but abiding relish.
Dalzell, who never married, retired in 2004 having set up Dalzell and Beresford with Simon Beresford in 1998. He lived in Brighton, where he died after heart surgery.
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Larry Dalzell, theatre agent, was born on January 16, 1933. He died on June 26, 2011, aged 78