Marius Re Goring CBE FRSL, a renowned English stage and screen actor, was born on May 23, 1912, to Dr. Charles Buckman Goring, a celebrated physician and criminologist, and Kate Winifred (née MacDonald),a former suffragette and talented pianist. He was educated at The Perse School, Cambridge, England, and later at universities in Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, and Paris, where he perfected his French and German, becoming fluent in both languages.
Goring's early stage career began with a fairy role at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, in 1925, at the age of twelve, in "Crossings: A Fairy Play" written by Walter De La Mare. His first London appearance was at the Rudolph Steiner Hall in December 1927 as Harlequin in Jean Sterling McKinlay's Children's Matinees. He went on to perform regularly at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells in the 1930s, later touring France and Germany, where he played iconic roles such as Macbeth, Romeo, Trip in School for Scandal, and the Chorus in Henry V alongside Laurence Olivier.
In 1940, Goring joined the army but was seconded to the BBC the following year, where he became supervisor of productions for its German Service. He made regular propaganda broadcasts to Germany under the alias Charles Richardson, using his father's first name and his grandmother's maiden name, due to the popularity of Hermann Göring, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe.
Goring married German Jewish actress Lucie Mannheim in 1941, and they worked together on stage and in films and television numerous times over the years. He was a founding member of British Equity in 1929, serving on its council for decades from 1949 and was elected its vice president three times. However, his relationship with the union became contentious in the 1970s, leading to legal battles, including a High Court loss that nearly bankrupted him.
Goring received numerous accolades, including being made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1979 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991. He passed away on September 30, 1998, at the age of 86, at his home in Rushlake Green, East Sussex, leaving behind his third wife, Prudence FitzGerald, a television producer/director, and his only child, Phyllida, from his first marriage.
