Biography
Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor and physician. Born in Dublin in 1913, he was educated at Stonyhurst College and studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin, qualifying as a house surgeon. He made his stage debut in the early 1930s and his film debut in 1935, appearing in Michael Powell's The Edge of the World (1937).
During the Second World War he served as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, resuming his acting career after 1947. His film roles include Vogel in 49th Parallel (1941), Captain Macmorris in Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944), the title character in Martin Luther (1953), Dr Julian Karswell in Night of the Demon (1957) and Zeus in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). He was also a member of the Old Vic Company and appeared in other films such as Hamlet (1948), The Nun's Story (1959) and Becket (1964).
MacGinnis worked in both film and television until the mid-1970s, when he returned to medical practice. He died in 1977.
