Those readers who lived in Ashby from the 1960s to the mid-1990s might remember passing a distinguished-looking, elderly gentlemen on their way along Lower Church Street.
He was Ernest Romilly Maundrell Lunge, better known in the theatre and film world of the 1930s as simply Romilly Lunge. He made 15 films and appeared in many stage plays between 1933 and 1940. He played a secret agent masquerading as a newspaper journalist in Traitor Spy (1939). Other movies included The Dictator (1935) with Madeleine Carroll and Emlyn Williams; and The Mind of Mr. Reeder (1939) as Inspector Gaylor. His last film was The Door with Seven Locks (1940) with Leslie Banks, based on the 1926 Edgar Wallace novel. One can watch it on DVD, as one can The Clairvoyant (1935), starring Claude Rains and Fay Wray; and Sidewalks of London (1938), with Charles Laughton, Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison. He remembered Vivien Leigh during rehearsals being quite distracted by her secret liaisons with Laurence Olivier. Hitchcock once interviewed him and they both admitted to being nervous. He learned to sing opera in La Scala theatre in Milan, being trained briefly by Caruso.
He recalled living for a year in Wiesbaden, Germany in the mid-1930s and paying his monthly rent with a briefcase filled with thousands of Reichmarks. From 1941 to 1945, Romilly served in the Royal Navy, working with fine tuning sonar to better detect German U-Boats, once showing Prince Philip the secret research needed to trap the submarines. Between 1947 and 1966, he set up as a ‘gentleman farmer’ near Austrey, Warwickshire. His mother had moved from London to Ashby and, after she died, Romilly came to live in Lower Church Street, next to the Lyric Rooms (aptly once a short-lived cinema and theatre). He ran Ashby’s only-ever washeteria at No. 17 Market Street and could occasionally be seen in the town. Sadly, he became virtually blind and was eventually housebound. He died on 1st August 1994, aged 89.
His gravestone, in Ashby Cemetery reads: He was very tall, distinguished in appearance, had an easy and attractive manner and could act with just the right proportion of human interest and emotion.
I bought and watched the DVD of his last film - The Door with Seven Locks - which he starred in with Leslie Banks, Lilli Palmer and Gina Malo. I realised afterwards that I should have watched the 16mm-sourced version rather than the 35mm Network transfer onto DVD. It appeared sharper and may well have got rid of the occasional jump in the picture (and dialogue!). The story is average fare, but Romilly does his best; he is tall, moderately handsome and speaks with a splendid upper class accent - the norm for films in those days. The DVD cover says the four heroes/heroines are caught in a terrifying web of deceit, torture and murder... Well, to a certain extent. There were murders, potential torture and plenty of deceit. Terrifying? No.
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