Nicholas Clay

The Face of the Shining Armor

Nicholas Clay was the face of an England that no longer exists. In 1981, John Boorman put him in plate armor to play Lancelot in Excalibur, and that role irreversibly defined his career.

He was not just a handsome actor with blond hair and light eyes.

There was something tragic in his gaze that fit the Arthurian myth perfectly. That shoot in the forests of Ireland was a chaos of mud and metal, where Clay had to learn to ride horseback while carrying pounds of real steel on his shoulders.

The son of a professional boxer, Nicholas was born in postwar London in 1946. His father wanted him to become an athlete, but the boy preferred the stage. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and soon caught the attention of Laurence Olivier, who recruited him for the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic.

That classical training gave him the tools to survive in an industry that often only wanted to exploit his physique.

In 1972 he took part in The Darwin Adventure, playing the young naturalist. Still, the movies didn't fully open their big doors to him until the 1980s arrived.

The Price of Physical Beauty

The same year as his success with the knights of the Round Table, he starred in Lady Chatterley’s Lover opposite Sylvia Kristel. It was a risky move. The film's eroticism brought him instant worldwide fame but also typecast him as the tormented lover.

And the British film industry of the time was not quick to forgive excess skin.

In 1982 he shot Evil Under the Sun under director Guy Hamilton. Playing Patrick Redfern in this adaptation of Agatha Christie allowed him to share screen time with Maggie Smith and James Mason. Clay earned a competitive salary by European production standards of the time.

A Refuge on Television

From the mid-1980s on, offers for leading roles in major productions dried up. Nicholas Clay didn't sink. He returned to the stage and began taking television series roles that kept him financially active.

He agreed to take part in The Last Days of Pompeii in 1984.

His real interest, however, shifted toward teaching. In his later years he devoted much of his time to teaching acting at the Actors' Centre in London. He wanted new talent to understand that fame is just a geographical accident in an actor's life.

In 1998 he appeared in the miniseries Merlin as Lord Leo. It was one of his final roles before illness forced him to step away from the spotlight.

He died in London on May 25, 2000 from liver cancer.

The autopsy and medical reports confirmed that he died at the age of 53 at his home in the Streatham neighborhood.