Obituaries: James Aubrey

WHEN he was only 14, James Aubrey found fame as Ralph in Peter Brook's strident movie Lord of the Flies. He got the role after Brook had auditioned more than 3,000 boys and, with his tousled hair and boyish good looks, was an integral part in making the film a success. It has now become something of a cult classic. It was quite an undertaking for one so young and Brook, ever the professional, made few concessions to his young cast. He took more than three hours of film then edited it down to 90 minutes. Aubrey said after filming: "For me something happened; a religious, spiritual experience. Peter Brook was the octopus and we were the arms."

Aubrey went on to find further success with ITV's steamy Saturday evening drama Bouquet of Barbed Wire in 1976, where his character was the focus of many passionate romantic intrigues.

One of his first professional stage appearances was at the Glasgow Citizens for the 1972-73 season. Aubrey was an outstanding Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, a combative Theridamas in Marlowe's Tamburlaine and a particularly contrary Pozzo in Waiting For Godot. He was also in The White Devil and The Maids.

Tamburlaine and Twelfth Night were taken to the Edinburgh Festival in 1973. The company took over the Assembly Hall and festooned the theatre with banners and gruesome skeletons tied to the hall's pillars. Even before the audience entered, they were met by a fearsome collection of actors at the top of the grand entrance from the Mound – under the gaze of the statue of John Knox. The actors scrutinised the audience fiercely as they entered and once the production started, blood spouted from the dead bodies strewn across the stage. It all fitted ideally with Keith Hack's arresting and barbaric production. The modern-dress production of Twelfth Night by Giles Havergal proved controversial but Aubrey's Aguecheek again won praise for his wonderfully alert and comic touches.

Audrey returned to the Citz in 1973 when Tamburlaine was revived – his most recent appearance there was in 1998 when he played Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in Philip Prowse's production of John Vanburgh's The Relapse.

In 1974, Aubrey went to Stratford with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was in two Shakespeares (The Tempest and Measure For Measure) and two new plays. At the Cambridge Theatre Company, Aubrey gave a startling performance as Tom Wingfield in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, which went to London in 1977. The author was much impressed with his performance and wrote in a copy of his biography: "To James. The best Tom ever."

In 1976, Aubrey got a major television break when he was cast in Andrea Newman's Bouquet of Barbed Wire which was followed the next year by Another Bouquet. The critic Clive James wrote that "by the end, everybody had been to bed with everybody else except the baby". Aubrey played the duplicitous and grouchy lover with an all-pervading venom. His character married his pregnant girlfriend (Susan Penhaligon) and then seduced her mother (Sheila Allen). Her husband (Frank Finlay) was jealous and the internal family torments made for gripping television. Other TV work included Rockliffe's Folly, The Men's Room and Dalziel and Pascoe.

But it is perhaps for Lord of the Flies that he will be best remembered. It was based on William Golding's novel about children stranded on a desert island after a plane crash and made huge demands on the children in the film. Brook filmed it on the island of Vieques, off Puerto Rico, and made them live in an abandoned pineapple cannery that had only the most basic facilities. Brook put aside the script and let the actors improvise, thus allowing the children to be natural. To fit in with the school holidays, it had to be completed by the summer of 1961, so the schedule was tight.

Aubrey's Ralph, was the reasonable and fair lad. He took control and was quietly authoritative and became the respectable face of the barbarism and uncouth events. When Ralph talks of murder, he does so in a quiet voice with Aubrey giving the scene a sinister matter-of-fact feel. It's Hugh Edwards' Piggy who erupts with indignation and is affronted.

Aubrey gave a sensitive, yet assertive, reading for one so young. Indeed, when he sprained an ankle Brook thought he might have to close down the film. His crying as the film ends was for real as he was still in considerable pain.

Aubrey, who was diagnosed with cancer some months ago, married Agnes Hallander, but the marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by his daughter.