John Garrick

Biography

The Brighton College-educated actor and singer John Garrick forsook his first job as a bank clerk for the musical stage. He took his first steps on the boards of variety in 1924, later touring Britain and Australia under the name 'Reginald Dandy' in musical comedies and operettas. Motion pictures soon beckoned and Garrick relocated to the U.S. in 1929. Despite performing in a universally panned play, "The Wishing Well", he was offered a contract with Fox Movietone. A most prominent early screen role had him cast as a Zeppelin-killing British war hero in the aerial melodrama, The Sky Hawk (1929). He then encountered still more dirigibles, starring as J-21 in Fox's bizarre futuristic musical Just Imagine (1930), in which he also warbled a couple of songs. After that, Garrick's roles became more heavily weighted towards perfunctory British aristocrats and debonair 'other men'. Unable to rise above the level of modestly-budgeted B-movies, Garrick packed his bags and returned to England. Back in Britain, he was afforded a higher profile in marginally more ambitious projects like Chu Chin Chow (1934), I Live Again (1936) and The Last Rose of Summer (1937). His last film appearance of note was in The Great Victor Herbert (1939). By the following year Garrick had retired from acting.