obituary
John Stride obituary
Athletic and hot-blooded actor and bon viveur who was considered the golden boy of the National Theatre in the Sixties
When John Stride played Romeo opposite Judi Dench’s Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s landmark 1960 production at the Old Vic, the director instructed him to play the balcony scene “like a puppy dog seeing a bitch for the first time”.
Strikingly good-looking with an athletic bearing and a clarion voice, the 24-year-old Stride took Zeffirelli at his word. “Everything is up — his ears, his tail, his nose,” he said. When he assailed the balcony, straining to grab hold of Juliet, he wondered if he had “gone over the top”.
Yet it was exactly the kind of uninhibited acting Zeffirelli had wanted when he told Stride to give way to his impulses and instincts. “They were like two amorous young animals who had been kept apart,…
