Alex Hyde-White

Alex Hyde-White
PerformerBowUnnamed Warrior
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Portrays:	Cadet Bow; Unnamed Warrior
Date of Birth:	January 30, 1959
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	66
Nationality:	UK
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Official Site
IMDb profile

Alex Punch Hyde-White (born 30 January 1959) is a British-American actor, producer, and director known for his extensive work in film and television. Born in London to actor Wilfrid Hyde-White (Sire Anton), he portrayed Cadet Bow in "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part I" and also appeared as an unnamed Warrior in "The Man with Nine Lives."

Early life

Hyde-White was born on 30 January 1959 in London. His parents were actor Wilfrid Hyde-White and Ethel M. Korenman, a stage manager who performed under the professional name Ethel Drew. Known by the nickname "Punch" among friends and colleagues, he relocated from England to the United States with his father following Wilfrid's role in Warner Brothers's 1963 film musical My Fair Lady. Hyde-White retained his dual citizenship throughout his career.

Hyde-White grew up in Palm Springs, California, where he attended Palm Springs High School and excelled in athletics, lettering in baseball, tennis, and golf. During his teen years, he joined his father in the theatrical production of The Jockey Club Stakes at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. At age 16, he attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., but left after one year to pursue an acting career.

Hyde-White has described his father Wilfrid as "mercurial, mischievous, challenging, but ultimately singularly special and rewarding." His relationship with his father would become a central theme in his 2012 documentary Three Days (of Hamlet).

Career

Universal Studios contract player

In 1978, at age 18, Hyde-White became one of the last "contract players" in Hollywood history when he signed with Universal Studios. This group of contract players also included Lindsay Wagner, Andrew Stevens, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gretchen Corbett, and Sharon Gless.

His first television role under the Universal contract was a single line—"leave my mother alone"—spoken to star Jack Klugman in the television series Quincy, M.E. He recurred in several episodes of Quincy, M.E., each time as a different character, and made numerous appearances in Battlestar Galactica and later Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which also featured his father Wilfrid in a recurring role as Doctor Goodfellow during the second season.

According to Hyde-White, his Battlestar Galactica casting came about when his father was appearing in the pilot and Universal was auditioning young actors to play Viper pilots. The studio conducted a screen test with father and son together using dialogue from one of Wilfrid Hyde-White's plays.

At age 23, Hyde-White made his Broadway debut.

Film and television work

Throughout the 1980s, Hyde-White worked extensively on Broadway and in England, where he obtained his first starring role in Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986). International productions followed, including Ishtar (1987) filmed in Morocco, Phantom of the Opera (1989) filmed in Budapest, and The First Olympics: Athens 1896 (1984) filmed in Greece. He worked on several UK television productions before returning to California in 1989 to work on the final season of Newhart as Scooter Drake.

Hyde-White's Hollywood film work includes notable appearances in several major productions. He worked with Steven Spielberg three times, and has expressed admiration for Spielberg's directorial approach, noting that he "intuits, he will allow the inspiration of the moment." His Spielberg collaborations include playing a younger version of Henry Jones Sr. (portrayed by Sean Connery) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and as Dick Kesner, a divorce lawyer, in Catch Me If You Can (2002). He also portrayed David Morse, the polo-playing grandson of Ralph Bellamy's character, in the hit romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990).

In the historical epic Gods and Generals (2003), Hyde-White portrayed Union Civil War General Ambrose P. Burnside.

Hyde-White has cited influential directors and actor-directors who shaped his approach to filmmaking, including Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, and Kevin Costner, whom he describes as "actors who created stories and used the technique and discipline of the film set to do this."

Marvel's Fantastic Four

In 1994, Hyde-White played Dr. Reed Richards (a.k.a. Mister Fantastic) in a low-budget motion picture adaptation of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four. The film was produced by Roger Corman for German producer Bernd Eichinger to retain the film rights to the property before they expired.

Hyde-White was cast around Thanksgiving 1993, having previously worked on other Roger Corman films. He described his motivation for taking the role as occurring during "a bit of a life change" in his mid-30s, noting that his "natural approach" and "ability to handle the dialogue in that sort of slightly melodramatic Star Trek way" suited the material.

The film was never officially released theatrically. According to Hyde-White, although Corman believed in the film and was determined it be distributed, Eichinger ordered all promotions halted and the negative destroyed just before the film was to premiere at the Mall of America. However, bootleg copies circulated on VHS and eventually online, and the film has acquired its own cult following. Hyde-White is regarded by many comics fans as an excellent embodiment of the character.

More than 30 years after the 1994 production, Hyde-White and his co-stars Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood, and Michael Bailey Smith were invited to make cameo appearances in Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025). Hyde-White and Staab appear as television journalists, while Underwood and Smith play power plant workers rescued by the Human Torch. All four also appear in a newsreel sequence.

Reflecting on the experience following the First Steps premiere, Hyde-White stated: "I do, actually, believe in karma. Very rarely do you get a chance to wait 30 years to test that theory." The 1994 film has been the subject of the 2015 documentary Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four and a 2019 book, Forsaken: The Making and Aftermath of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four, which is being adapted for Audible through Hyde-White's production company.

Production and directing work

Hyde-White founded his production company TMG, named after his mentor, Washington attorney Steven Martindale. Through TMG, he produced the 2002 independent romantic drama Pursuit of Happiness (unrelated to the Will Smith film of a similar name), which starred Frank Whaley, Annabeth Gish, Adam Baldwin, and featured Jean Stapleton in a cameo. The film was directed by John Putch.

Hyde-White directed and starred in Three Days (of Hamlet), produced by TMG and Ytinifni Pictures. The experimental first-person documentary follows a troupe of actors, including Peter Woodward, Richard Chamberlain, and Stefanie Powers, who gather for three days (July 1-3, 2010) to rehearse and perform a reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Matrix Theatre in West Hollywood.

Hyde-White has described the film's primary plot as "Actor, filmmaker Alex Hyde-White comes to terms with the legacy of his father and sets out to inspire his sons using a three day staged reading of Hamlet as the vehicle." The concept materialized following Christmas 2009 while drinking Schweppes Bitter Lemon (which he thanks in the film's closing credits), when three elements converged: he had just performed in a staged reading of It's a Wonderful Life in Santa Monica, was reading about actor John Barrymore's 1920s London production of Hamlet, and was writing about his experiences on Spielberg film sets.

The documentary merges theatrical production with behind-the-scenes reality television-style footage. Hyde-White described the Matrix Theatre as "a character in and of itself, an old building on Melrose full of memorabilia." The film captures candid moments and features individual interviews with each actor discussing significant three-day periods in their lives.

Three Days (of Hamlet) won Best Documentary at three festivals: International Family Film Festival (Hollywood, Spring 2012), L-Dub (Lake Worth, FL, Fall 2012), and Eugene International Film Festival (Oregon, Fall 2012). The film premiered at the Palm Beach Film Festival in April 2012 to positive reviews. Hyde-White has noted that director Alex Rotaru of Shakespeare High described Three Days (of Hamlet) as a "mise en abyme" film—a French term meaning "a dream within a dream" or "looking into a pool of infinite reflections."

Hyde-White also founded Punch Audio in 2012, a Hollywood-based audiobook production company that publishes through Audible. The company has produced over 650 audiobooks for independent authors, with affiliated studios across the United States including locations in New York City, Florida, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Boise, Idaho. The company specializes in helping authors who want to narrate their own work as well as providing experienced professional narrators. Artists at Punch Audio include British actor Ian Hart and actresses Mary Jane Wells, Liane Curtis, and Kate Huffman.

Recent work

Hyde-White has continued to work steadily in film and television, including guest appearances on shows such as Hill Street Blues and NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service. He appeared in Jordan Peele's science fiction horror film Nope (2022). Hyde-White has described himself as having "played big parts in small movies, and smaller parts in big films."

Personal life

Hyde-White was married to actress Karen Dotrice, best known for her role as Jane Banks in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), from 14 February 1986 until 1992. They have one son, Garrick Hyde-White. Hyde-White's former father-in-law, Roy Dotrice, was a renowned Shakespearean actor; both Hyde-White and Dotrice made guest appearances on Babylon 5.

On 25 June 1997, Hyde-White married Shelly Bovert Hyde-White, an assistant director and producer known for work on films including Convict 762 (1997) and Sworn to Justice (1996). They have one son, Jackson Conor Hyde-White.

Hyde-White resides in Southern California and works with children as a baseball coach and theater teacher. He has a sister, Juliet Hyde-White.

The only time Hyde-White and his father Wilfrid appeared on screen together was on The Merv Griffin Show in 1980. A clip from that appearance is featured in Hyde-White's documentary Three Days (of Hamlet).

References

External links

• Alex Hyde-White article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• Punch Audio