Biography

Andrew Jack grew up in North London, in what was then a quiet backwater known as Finchley Garden Village. Stephen Jack, Andrew's father, was a well-known and popular radio broadcaster and actor. As a small boy, Andrew was very used to hearing his father's voice coming from the radio in their sitting room and to seeing his father usher actors into the house for coaching in accent and dialect needed for a forthcoming rôle. Stephen Jack was later made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society for his services to language, accent and dialect. Andrew's mother was a gifted horticulturalist.

It was Andrew's father who, perceiving early on that his son had talent for acting and an excellent 'ear', persuaded him to use the name 'Andrew Jack' as he himself had adopted the surname of Jack. Andrew's grandfather, a singer, had felt that their family name of Hutchinson was already rather too abundant in the world of entertainment and that the surname Jack would be more readily remembered and so Andrew's father had adopted the name Stephen Jack many years earlier. From his earliest acting rôle -- a schoolboy in "Whack-O" with Jimmy Edwards -- Andrew was known as Andrew Jack.

In 1959 training at the Arts Educational School began, including acting, ballet, tap and modern dance together with vocational work in various productions including Whack-O, Armchair Theatre and Saturday Night Theatre productions. It was during one of these TV theatre productions that Andrew first worked with Robert Rietti who later had a considerable influence on the direction of Andrew's professional career. At the Arts Educational School, Andrew met his lifelong friend, Nicolas Chagrin. 

In 1960, at the age of 16, Andrew became the second youngest student ever to be accepted at the Central School of Speech and Drama. 

Constable Burrell (Andrew Jack) in Unit Beat Policing for the Central Office of Information, mid-1960s

After leaving the Central School, Andrew worked in Repertory Theatre at the Arthur Brough Players at the Leas Pavilion, Folkestone, as Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) and playing Nigel in Salad Days then at the old Nottingham Playhouse under the direction of Andre Van Gyseghem, playing Philario in Shakespeare's Cymbeline and as understudy, ASM and player of bit parts; a run at the Wimbledon Theatre; a week in Hull and then at the Lyceum, Edinburgh, then The Gentleman Dancing Master at the Theatre Royal Windsor. Followed by several appearances on episodes of Dr Who, playing an Aztec warrior. As almost all actors discover, other work pays the bills when starting in the chosen career; Andrew's day jobs included working as a builders' labourer, a stagehand at the Golders Green Hippodrome, delivery driver for the Victoria Wine Company and deliveries for a flower shop in Finchley. Nothing learned is ever wasted and no actor ignores the opportunity to listen to and observe the real life characters met during any average day.

In 1964 Andrew was asked (with Patrick Ellis, the youngest student ever to be accepted at the Central School) to arrange the sword fights for an Italian production of Romeo and Juliet, to tour Italy for two months, to be directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Andrew and Patrick choreographed the fights for the tour of Romeo e Giuletta which played in the open air in Roman theatres; if no theatre beckoned, the crew would build one in the local park. This production became very well known and was, of course, the precursor to Zeffirelli's film starring Leonard Whiting.

Later in the same year, Andrew became a 'dayman' at the Golders Green Hippodrome but this appointment was cut short by an offer in 1965 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London. Prior to taking up this appointment, he appeared in a production of Schönberg's opera, Moses and Aaron. This production pushed out the envelope of what could and needn't be worn during a theatrical performance. After the 7 special performances, Andrew settled happily into various small roles in Henry V and The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew in which he played a curious kind of farmer. During his time with the RSC he appeared in Henry IV Part I. Henry IV Part II; Henry V; Twelfth Night: and The Revenger's Tragedy. David Warner's Hamlet was Andrew's "play out" and on any of those afternoons or evenings Andrew could be found in the understudies box lapping up what has been acclaimed as one of the finest performances of the modern stage.

For the next five years Andrew appeared in an assortment of Television productions which included Becket; Z Cars; Softly, Softly Task Force, for the BBC and Dr in the House for Thames TV. A couple of films for the Central Office of Information, one entitled Unit Beat Policing playing Constable Burrell. Many BBC and "World Service" radio productions both in drama and comedy including Stand By for West playing Sergeant to the famous Inspector West who was played by Patrick Allen (Mrs West was played by Sarah Lawson, Patrick's wife). All Andrew's other professional work was taken up with 'dubbing' or 'looping' as it was then called. This consisted of a group of ten or twelve actors, men and women, called a 'loop group' re-voicing the 'bit part' actors in major feature films (some were not so 'bit part'). The first introduction to this type of work was when Andrew's father Stephen Jack took him, as a visitor, to a recording session. The session was being run by Robert Rietti who suggested during a coffee break that Andrew should do a test for 'lip sync' (lip synchronisation). A loop of film of the actor Stanley Baker was run through the studio's projector several times and each time Andrew spoke Stanley Baker's words into a microphone, when the recordings and the film were played back together, lo and behold Andrew's voice came out of Stanley Baker's mouth. A different system known as 'Ritmo' was used by the De Lane Lea studios in Soho where Andrew looped his first film A Boy and a Horse which was Swedish in origin. English was dubbed on to the Swedish actors faces, Andrew read the words from a small screen under the main one (rather like what is known as an 'autocue' or 'teleprompter') the words had been chosen earlier to match the lip movements so lip sync' was automatic.

A few of the well known productions that Andrew re-voiced during that period are Cromwell; The Charge of the Light Brigade; Waterloo; Only When I Larf; Lady Caroline Lamb and Doctor Zhivago (in which Andrew re-voiced as many as sixteen individual characters.) This was also the only time Andrew worked with his father.

In 1971 Andrew took up a supplementary form of employment and joined BOAC as an air steward. The intention was to see as much of the world as possible in two years while still working in the profession in radio and looping films. The two years became six and a half, BOAC became British Airways and Andrew learned more accents than he ever expected to. In 1978 Andrew began to teach dialect to the final year students at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) on a part time basis and then in the following year began to teach full-time at LAMDA; The Guildford School of Acting; The Bush Davies School and The London Studio Centre, the last two being principally schools of ballet and dance. It was during this year that Andrew was invited to become a founder tutor of the Actor's Centre in London. At LAMDA, Andrew co-taught with Julia Wilson Dixon and Pamela Barnard and was privileged to work alongside Glynn Macdonald who taught Alexander Technique. Andrew then taught for the next ten years at all the above and in addition; the London Centres of Syracuse University and Ithaca College and at the British American Drama Academy (BADA).

In 1984 Patrick Stewart, then married to Sheila Falconer, head of movement at LAMDA suggested Andrew to Richard Stroud who was about to direct a BBC TV mini series based on the life of Nancy Astor. Richard needed someone to coach his actors in a Virginian accent and this became Andrew's first coaching job as a Dialect Coach.

Family

Andrew's father, John Stephen Charlton Hutchinson, was the well-known broadcaster and dialect expert, always known professionally as Stephen Jack. From an early age, Andrew was accustomed to hearing his father's voice coming out of the radio in the sitting room. Stephen Jack was very much in demand and was a mainstay of British radio broadcasting at a time when radio had the audience television has today. The other phenomenon of having a well-known actor for a father was that other actors would regularly come to the house on social visits and sometimes for coaching in a whole variety of dialects. Stephen Jack was an authority on British regional accents and very able when it came to imitating the way people from many other countries speak English, in fact he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts because of his work in this area.

Correspondence between Daniel Jones* and Stephen Jack on the subject of accent and dialect is among Andrew's prized possessions.

* (Daniel Jones is the author of many books on English pronunciation as well as being the originator of an excellent English Pronouncing Dictionary)

Andrew's mother, Julia Mary Hutchinson (nee Willsher), studied art and graduated but instead of pursuing a career as a painter she soon transferred her energies to horticulture and something of this love of beautiful gardens and plants has been passed on to her only son. Julia was a member of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Her other legacy was that she was part Romany which is why when we look at a photograph of Andrew we can see a gypsy looking back at us.

Laura Hunter Hutchinson was Andrew's grandmother and an accomplished painter and commercial artist. Her work frequently appeared in women's magazines and on the counters of prestigious department stores such as Harrod's in the days when artist's impressions of garments were used instead of today's photographs of models wearing underwear.

Her work includes a fine range of water colours and self portraits.

Washington Roebling (Andrew Jack) and
Mrs Roebling (Paula Jack) in Kate and Leopold