Henry Francis Maltby (25 November 1880–25 October 1963) was a prolific writer for the London stage and British cinema from after the First World War, until the 1950s. He also appeared in many films.

Life and career

Maltby was born in Ceres, South Africa. He was married twice, to Billie Joyce and Norah M. Pickering. Maltby served in France, as a bombardier.

Playwriting career

On his return to Britain, Maltby wrote and performed in many plays for the West End theatre, some achieving success and transferring to Broadway. He wrote The Rotters in 1915, but it took nearly a year to get it to the provincial stage. The play was a success and transferred to the Garrick Theatre in the West End, playing for 86 performances and toured for the next decade, also being made into a film. The theme is satirical, dealing with a dysfunctional family and their minor 'sins' revolving around the father's obsessive respectability. The play received a drubbing from The Times but was popular with audiences. He also wrote an all-woman farce, Petticoats with women taking over the state (with the men away at war).

By 1919, Maltby was working on collaborations in musical theatre, adapting the libretto of a French piece for Maggie (1919), with Fred Thompson. He began to turn out comedies at a rate of two a year, with his own works, such as For the Love of Mike being adapted by Clifford Gray and Sonny Miller into a musical.

Film career

Maltby's film career began with the silent Profit and the Loss in 1917. He also appeared in many films after 1933, including Powell and Pressburger's 1944 A Canterbury Tale and the 1934 Freedom of the Seas. As a character actor of pompous individuals, he appeared in many of the Will Hay and Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1930s for Gainsborough Studios. He is listed in the cast of nearly sixty films, but rarely as the principal player. He is listed as scriptwriter on nearly 50 films, and in the 1930s, he also wrote screenplays for the Todd Slaughter series of melodramas.

In 1950, Maltby published his autobiography, Ring Up the Curtain. he died in Hove, Sussex, England at the age of 82.

See also

Plays and musicals

• The Rotters (1916; 1922)
• Petticoats (1917)
• Maggie (1919)
• Such a Nice Young Man (1920)
• The Right Age to Marry (1926)
• Dear Old England (1930)
• Just My Luck (1933)
• For the Love of Mike (1933)
• Grand Guignol Horror Plays - Something More Important (1935)
• Lilac Domino (1953 revision)

Films

Maltby was a screenwriter on the following films, unless otherwise noted:

• Profit and the Loss (1917)
• The Love Nest (1933)
• Those Were the Days (1934)
• Over the Garden Wall (1934)
• Old Faithful (1935)
• It Happened in Paris (1935)
• The Right Age to Marry (1935)
• Queen of Hearts (1936)
• Nothing Like Publicity (1936)
• ''Not So Dusty (1936)
• The Crimes of Stephen Hawkes (aka Strangler's Morgue (1936)
• Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936 film) (1936)
• Where There's a Will (1936)
• The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936)
• Boys Will Be Girls (1937)
• Young and Innocent (1937)
• Never Too Late to Mend (1937)
• The Ticket of Leave Man (1937)
• The Strange Adventures of Mr. Smith (1937)
• Wanted (1937)
• Pygmalion (1938)
• Darts Are Trumps (1938)
• Crimes at the Dark House (1939)
• Old Mother Riley Joins Up (1939)
• A Canterbury Tale (1944; actor)
• A Medal for the General (1944; actor)
• Home, Sweet Home (1945; actor)
• The Trojan Brothers (1946; actor)
• Caesar and Cleopatra (1946; actor)
• Something in the City (1950)
• It's a Grand Life (1953)
• Not So Dusty (1956; author of short story)

References

Further reading

• Ring Up the Curtain: Being the stage and film memoirs of H.F. Maltby (autobiography) (Hutchinson, 1950)

External links

• MSN Movie biography of Maltby
• AllMovie list of credits