Timothy Ward Seely, who died 18 May, 2024, aged 88, an actor, was a scion of the Seely baronets, and was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, and Duke of Windsor).
In 1957, he made his theatre debut in the play Tea and Sympathy at the London Comedy Theatre. Seely played the young Tom Lee, who fell in love with the senior Laura, played by Elizabeth Sellars. He played the same role in the adaptation at New Shakespeare Theatre, Liverpool. There he also played Rodolfo in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge. In 1958, he acted alongside Maggie Smith at the London St Martin's Theatre in an adaptation of The Stepmother. Seely was member of the BBC Radio Drama Company, with which he acted the title role in Pericles, Prince of Tyre. He also had roles in various Shakespeare plays, including as Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew, Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Polonius in Hamlet, Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing and the King of France in All's Well That Ends Well. In the late 1950s, he also took roles in film and television productions. One of his more prominent roles was as Midshipmen Ned Young in the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, where Seely appeared alongside Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard. He also made several appearances in the YTV soap Emmerdale, as Sir Thomas Weir, in 1994-95.
Seely was born 10 June, 1935, the second son of the late Major Frank James Wriothesley Seely (1901–1956), and a great-grandson of Sir Charles Seely, 1st Baronet. His mother was Vera Lilian Birkin (1903-1970), a friend of the future King Edward VIII, a daughter of British Colonel Charles Wilfred Birkin (1865-1932) (fourth son of a lace embroidery and tableware magnate of Nottingham, Sir Thomas Isaac Birkin 1831-1922). His aunt was Freda Dudley Ward (1894-1983), Marquesa de Casa Maury, a mistress of King Edward VIII (1894-1972) and wife of William Dudley Ward (1877-1946).
Biographer Andrew Lownie claims that 'a convincing case' can be made for Seely's illegitimate royal birth. "This is interesting, as Seely was born in 1935, after the affair with Wallis had begun, but we know from Special Branch reports that the Prince of Wales was not monogamous - he was enjoying an affair with an Austrian Princess at the same time."
The future King had been best man at Vera Birkin's wedding to Jimmy Seely in 1925 and the prince often stayed with the Seelys in Nottinghamshire. "The family later played down the story, and refused to talk about it but, after the Duke's death, Seely was contacted by the Duke's lawyers," says Lownie, who himself approached the Seelys in August 2020. He received an email from Timothy's wife Camilla: "Over the years, various authors/reporters have contacted Tim but the response was always the same, he is not interested. He is immensely discreet… We would not wish to be even a small part of yet more unworthy stories concerning The Royal Family."
Tim Seely studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
He married firstly, He m 1st 1960 (div) Anna Henrietta Maria St Paul Butler (later Lady Younger) 1924-96 (her 3rd husband was Sir Jock Younger 3rd Bt) daughter of Capt Horace George St Paul Butler (1898-1971) by his wife Dorothy Henrietta Torlesse (1899-1934); and married secondly, in 2001, (Ann) Camilla Cartwright, daughter of John Sheward Cartwright.
From his first marriage he leaves a son, Hugo Michael David St. Paul Seely (born 1961).
-=-
No comments:
Post a Comment