Russell Thorndike

Russell Thorndike led somewhat of a dual career. He was most visibly an actor (and the brother of Dame Sybil Thorndike) with a vast array of roles to his credit on stage and screen, from 1904 until the early '60s. He was also an author involved in Charles Dickens adaptations for younger readers, the satirical play The Tragedy of Mr. Punch, and, most notably, a series of historical novels built around the character of clergyman and smuggler Dr. Syn, which became the basis for one of Disney's most popular live-action television films, Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (1964), starring Patrick McGoohan. Arthur Russell Thorndike (it was spelled "Thorndyke" at one time) was born in Rochester, Kent, England, in 1885, the son of Canon Arthur John Webster Thorndike and the former Agnes Macdonald Bowers. He was educated at St. George's School and King's School, Rochester. He was also a singer in the boys choir at the Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle, crossing paths with composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, and he sang personally for Queen Victoria. His last public performance took place at her funeral. Thorndike was enrolled, along with his older sister, Sybil, as an acting student in Ben Greet's Academy, and made his stage debut on August 4, 1904, at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, as John Rugby in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Thus began a five-decade acting career in which Thorndike portrayed many of the best roles in theater on four continents, performing not only in England and America, but also in South Africa, India, and the rest of the Far East. He joined the First Westminster Dragoons with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and was later invalided in 1916 after service in Egypt, Suez, and Gallipoli. According to some accounts, the inspiration for the Dr. Syn novels came to Thorndike while he and his sister were touring America in 1913. They were staying at a hotel in Spartanburg, SC, when a murder was committed on the building's front steps in the middle of the night -- the corpse had been left there all night, and during that time, Thorndike began weaving the tales of the 18th century Dymchurch parson Christopher Syn. Other accounts say that Thorndike, who kept a cottage in Dymchurch, had already conceived of Dr. Syn and his adventures and had gotten some of his character names off headstones in the local cemetery. Whatever its direct inspiration, the story had originally been conceived by Thorndike as a play, but when it proved too expensive to produce, he transformed it into a novel about Christopher Syn, the vicar of Dymchurch in the year 1780. He is a wise and kindly village parson who has some connection to a long-dead pirate named Captain Clegg, and also to a band of masked smugglers who are terrifying the area by night. The first of the novels, Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh, was published in 1915, while Thorndike was serving in the army. The book was an immediate success, and theatrical producers started beating down the door of Thorndike's agent, trying to get the rights to stage the novel. The theater version was every bit as successful, and in one fell swoop, Thorndike joined the rarefied ranks of widely popular historical novelists such asAlexandre Dumas and Anthony Hope. When he returned to civilian life, Thorndike concentrated, once again, on his acting. His Shakespearean portrayals dominated, but Thorndike also did parts derived from the writings of Joseph Conrad and Henry James, among other authors. In 1922, he starred in the first English-language production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, which gave him the unique opportunity of originating a role in a classic. Equally significant that same year, Thorndike came to movies in a feature entitled Tense Moments From Great Plays, in which he did scenes from Macbeth and It's Never Too Late to Mend. The following year, he portrayed the title role in Scrooge, and did ten more feature films during the silent era. During the mid-'30s, he did another handful of movies, most of which are forgotten today. It was also in the mid-'30s that Thorndike, by popular demand, decided to extend the story of Doctor Syn by writing the first follow-up book, Doctor Syn Returns, a prequel to the first book, as were all of the titles that followed, ultimately extending the timeline of the adventure back to the year 1754. Doctor Syn on the High Seas and The Further Adventures of Doctor Syn were published in 1936, and in 1937 came The Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn. In 1938, he published The Amazing Quest of Doctor Syn, and, six years later, Thorndike finished the series with The Shadow of Doctor Syn. In 1937, the celebrated actor George Arliss portrayed the title character in the film Doctor Syn, which marked his final screen appearance, and is also one of the most exciting costume adventure films made in England during the '30s. Thorndike later admitted that he had sold the film rights to London Films for a fraction of their value (by some accounts, a mere 20 pounds), which he came to regret bitterly. The novels were extremely successful, however, and by the time he'd published the seventh in 1944, Thorndike had developed a cult of readers akin to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, or what C.S. Forester achieved with Captain Horatio Hornblower. Thorndike continued acting full-time into the mid-'50s, and played in such widely seen and celebrated British films as Caesar and Cleopatra (1946), Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). Beginning in 1949, he also appeared in the West End and touring productions of Peter Pan, portraying Smee for 14 consecutive Christmas seasons. Thorndike's other books included a biography of his sister and adaptations of Dickens' Great Expectations and Oliver Twist for children, as well as a handful of historical novels, including The Slype, which connects obliquely with the Doctor Syn books. In the mid-'50s, American author William Buchanan discovered the Doctor Syn novels and, availing himself to the fact that no American copyright had been secured for them at the time, he decided to adapt the character into his own book, entitled Christopher Syn (1960), credited jointly to Thorndike and himself. The book came to the attention of Walt Disney Studios, who bought the screen rights. (Ironically, around this time, Hammer Films produced its own adaptation of the first Doctor Syn novel, Night Creatures, aka Captain Clegg [1962], starring Peter Cushing.) The Disney film, known as Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (later re-edited for television as The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh), appeared around the same time, starring Patrick McGoohan. It became one of the most popular live-action Disney productions since his Davy Crockett vehicles -- even though it was altered, in many respects, from the Thorndike original. In the Disney version, Syn is a Robin Hood-like figure, helping the poor of Dymchurch against the privations of King George III (who, according to Disney, wasn't much more popular in England than he had been in the colonies). Thus, thanks to Buchanan and Disney, Thorndike's creation began another cycle of popularity, this time before a totally unexpected audience of children. Russell Thorndike died in 1972 at the age of 87, and was remembered as much for his books as for his theatrical career. In the decades since, his beloved Dymchurch has benefited from the renown of the Dr. Syn books, proven to be among the most popular pieces of literature to come out of a Kentish setting since Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of the Canterbury pilgrims 500 years earlier. A stream of visitors, as well as organized gatherings of fans, have graced Dymchurch and the surrounding area, and the association with Thorndike and Dr. Syn have become serious tourist attractions. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi