Philip Stone could make a measured voice sound quietly threatening. We value the stillness and careful listening he brought to Stanley Kubrick’s films, above all the unnerving Grady in The Shining.
Fi1m perspective
Philip Stone listens as though the person speaking has not yet reached the part that matters. He is still, and when he speaks the resonance of his voice gives an ordinary exchange an uncomfortable weight. In The Shining (1980), his Grady is frightening without needing the conspicuous force of Jack Nicholson’s performance. We were unnerved by Stone because his measured delivery makes Grady’s chilling dialogue sound almost routine. It is acting that rewards a director willing to leave him time to speak.
Television had made use of him as tough-minded authority figures from the early 1960s, before Stanley Kubrick noticed him in the 1969 stage production of The Contractor. Their film work began with Stone as Dad in A Clockwork Orange (1971). We find that film gripping, though too little concerned with the people Alex hurts; its supporting actors work around Malcolm McDowell’s troublingly engaging central performance. Graham in Barry Lyndon (1975) followed, then Grady, completing three consecutive films with Kubrick. That sustained collaboration makes sense: the director valued Stone’s economical acting and his ability to listen.
Kubrick’s patient tracking shots and the oppressive music in The Shining give Stone’s restraint a suitable setting. We have reservations about Nicholson making the danger too obvious, and the quieter acting is welcome beside him. Stone does not need to signal something sinister with every line; the weight of the voice and the attention to the other speaker do enough. That is where we rate him: in a part that allows us to notice the man beneath the authority figure, rather than merely recognise the type.
The later credits include Captain Phillip Blumburtt in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), then the Bishop in Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon (1993), his final film. Even the character names suggest how persistent that authority-figure casting could be. Start with The Shining, and pay attention when Stone is listening.
Biography
Philip Stone (14 April 1924 – 15 June 2003) was an English character actor. He appeared as Dad in A Clockwork Orange (1971) and as Delbert Grady in The Shining (1980). He was the only actor to appear in three consecutive Stanley Kubrick films, also playing Graham in Barry Lyndon (1975).
Stone began his career on the West End stage in 1947 after service in the Royal Air Force. He had earlier worked in engineering and suffered a period of ill health that interrupted his acting. Kubrick first noticed him in the 1969 Royal Court Theatre production of The Contractor.
Other film roles included parts in Thunderball (1965), Where Eagles Dare (1968), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The Lord of the Rings (1978), in which he voiced Théoden. He was also active in television and on stage throughout his career.
