
John Standing
Born August 16, 1934 · London, England, UK
Sir John Ronald Leon, 4th Baronet (born 16 August 1934) is an English actor and baronet who is known as John Standing. He is the stepson of John Clements. Standing was born in London, the son of Kay Hammond (née Dorothy Katherine Standing), an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, 3rd Baronet, a stockbroker descended from Sir Herbert Leon, the builder of Bletchley Park. He succeeded his father as the 4th baronet in 1964, but does not use the title. The Leon family were, until 1937, owners of Bletchley Park, the country house in Buckinghamshire used in the Second World War as a code-breaking centre. He was educated at Eton College and Millfield School, Somerset. He served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a second lieutenant, before going on to study at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London Standing began his career in Peter Brook's 1955 production of Titus Andronicus starring Laurence Olivier and wife Vivien Leigh and later played leading parts in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Christopher Fry's Ring Round the Moon, A Sense of Detachment by John Osborne, and Noël Coward's Private Lives, with Maggie Smith. He was nominated for an Olivier award (1979) for Close of Play at the National Theatre. He made his film debut in The Wild and the Willing (1962), going on to appear in King Rat (1965), Walk, Don't Run (1966), The Psychopath (1966), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), Nightflyers (1987), Mrs Dalloway (1997) and A Good Woman (2004). One of his first major television roles was as Sidney Godolphin in the BBC twelve-part serial, The First Churchills (1969). Other television appearances include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979); the ITV sitcom The Other 'Arf (1980–84), with Lorraine Chase; The Choir (1995) and King Solomon's Mines (2004). In the United States, he made guest appearances in numerous weekly programmes including L.A. Law, Civil Wars and Murder, She Wrote, and co-starred briefly with Robert Wagner and Samantha Smith in the action series Lime Street (1985). In 1976, he also appeared opposite Peter O'Toole in the little-seen BBC thriller film, Rogue Male, directed by Clive Donner. He appeared in the horror film Nightflyers (1987) adapted from a short story by George R. R. Martin. In 2002, he had a speaking credit on Lost Horizons, the second studio album from the British electronic duo Lemon Jelly. On track 1, "Elements", he lists the basic “elements" that make up the world: ash, metal, water, wood, fire and sky. On track 3, "Ramblin' Man", Standing reads a long list of various locations around the world, ranging from small Sussex villages to major world capitals. In July 2010, it was confirmed that he would be appearing as Jon Arryn in the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
Notable Appearances
Movies

V for Vendetta

The Elephant Man

The Contractor

Chaplin

The Eagle Has Landed

King Lear

Scoop

The Man Who Knew Too Little

The Great Escaper

The Happy Prince

The Sea Wolves

8 ½ Women

Lassie

Hot Enough for June

I Want Candy

The Gathering Storm

A Good Woman

A Touch of Love

The Shadow in the North

Rogue Trader

Longitude

The Legacy

Walk Don't Run

Queen & Country

The Woman In White

King Rat

Torture Garden

Witness to a Kill

Night of the Fox

To Catch a King

The Hippopotamus

Nightflyers

The Count of Solar

Churchill and the Movie Mogul

Mrs. Dalloway

Pandaemonium

Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel

The Wild and the Willing

Chameleons

The Biko Inquest

Invitation to the Wedding

The Class Of Miss MacMichael

Zee and Co.

Churchill's Secret

The Calling

Au Pair Girls

Rogue Male

All the Right Noises

Can You Hear Me?
TV Shows

L.A. Law

The Crown

BBC Play of the Month

The Avengers

The Saint

Screen Two

Hotel

The Wednesday Play

Hart to Hart

Hunter

ITV Playhouse

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

Space: 1999

Lexx

BBC2 Play of the Week

Van der Valk

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The Main Chance

The Vice

Eerie, Indiana

Civil Wars

Patrick Melrose

Borgia

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Keen Eddie

A Dance to the Music of Time

King Solomon's Mines

The Frighteners

Joan of Arc

Longitude

Gulliver's Travels

The Line of Beauty

The First Churchills

Armchair Theatre

In Deep

Murphy's Law

Love in a Cold Climate

Trust

Lime Street

Shillingbury Tales

Paddington Bear

Tonight at 8.30

Rosamunde Pilcher: The Other Wife

The Choir

The Other 'Arf

Fallen Angel

The Endless Game

The Woman In White

Beryl Reid
More Movies

Privates on Parade

The Real Jane Austen

The Psychopath

A Pair of Briefs

Shoreditch

The Sinking of the HMS Victoria

Mad Cows

The Falklands Play

The Endless Game

Visitors

The Iron Maiden

Riders

A Family Affair

Dark Holiday

Consenting Adults

Animal

Flapjack Floozie

Pygmalion

Queen's Messenger

May… I Have This Dance?




