DEAD BAXTER
Theatre actor Keith Baxter was perhaps best known as Prince Hal in Orson Welles play and film Chimes at Midnight, a composite of multiple Shakespeare plays that brought Welles’s Falstaff to the forefront. The production of the play was a clusterfuck – the actor who played one of the earls had a drinking problem and Henry IV was played by the deaf Reggie Jarman whose hearing aid plunked to the ground during rehearsal – and the expensive film had a similar rollercoaster with Welles beset with paranoia the taxman was coming for him. It all worked out in the end and both the play and especially the film were met with critical acclaim.
Baxter claimed the stage as his home from West End to Broadway, mostly in Shakespearean roles, and had the occasional TV spot such as on The Avengers and Hawaii Five-O. Some of the best in the business – John Gielgud, Tennessee Williams, Judi Dench – were his close friends. His death aged 90 came of a heart attack while swimming, and crashes down a tidal wave of unique joker points on Most Unique Picks 2023.
Keith Baxter
29 April 1933 – 24 September 2023, aged 90
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