Bill Travers

For other people of the same name, see William Travers (disambiguation).

Bill Travers
200px Bill Travers in 1966
Born	William Lindon-Travers (1922-01-03)3 January 1922 Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England
Died	Dorking, Surrey, England
Years active	1950–1992
Spouse(s)	Pat Rains Virginia McKenna (1957–1994; his death)
Children	5

William Lindon-Travers MBE (3 January 1922 – 29 March 1994) was a Special Forces Army Officer, English Actor, Screenwriter, Director and Animal Rights Activist, known professionally as Bill Travers.

Early life

Travers was born in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, the son of Florence (née Wheatley) and William Halton Lindon-Travers. He and his sister Linden (1913–2001) both became actors. Linden's daughter Susan Travers also became an actress.

War service

File:Major Bill Travers.jpg

Major Bill Travers MBE

William Ingle Linden-Travers enlisted as a private in the British Army at the age of eighteen, a few months after the outbreak of World War II, and was sent to India. Travers was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the Indian Army on 9 July 1942 (From the rank of Private). He served in the Long Range Penetration Brigade 4th Battalion 9th Gurkha Rifles in Burma, attached to Orde Wingate's staff, during which service he came to know John Masters who was his brigade major (Travers was later to act in Bhowani Junction, a tale written by Masters). While deep behind enemy lines Major Travers was stricken by malaria, he volunteered to be left behind in a native Burmese village. To avoid capture he disguised himself as a Chinese national, walked hundreds of miles through jungle territory until he reached an allied position.

In 1945 Travers was promoted to the rank of Major, and he joined Force 136 Special Operations Executive and was parachuted into Malaya. Travers was responsible for training and tactical decisions with the main resistance movement, the communist-led Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).

Major Travers left the Military in 1947.

Acting career

Travers began his acting career on the stage in 1949 then a year later made his film debut. In the mid 1950s his success in Geordie (1955) saw him contracted by MGM who thought he was going to be a big star. They cast him in Bhowani Junction (1956), The Seventh Sin (1957) and The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957), and tested him for the lead in Ben-Hur (1959). However his MGM movies all performed disappointingly at the box office and enthusiasm for Travers in Hollywood cooled.

Travers co-starred with his second wife, Virginia McKenna, in a number of films, most memorably as the conservationist George Adamson in the highly successful 1966 film Born Free, about which experience the two co-wrote the book On Playing with Lions. The experience made him and his wife very conscious of the many abuses of wild animals in captivity that had been taken from Africa and other natural environments around the world. Together they made a number of films around the subject such as 1969's Ring of Bright Water and An Elephant Called Slowly, for both of which he co-wrote the screenplay and acted. In 1976 he wrote, directed and produced the film Christian the Lion (also known as The Lion Who Thought He Was People).

The importance of animal rights led to Travers and his wife becoming involved in the "Zoo Check Campaign" in 1984 that evolved to their establishing the Born Free Foundation in 1991.

Bill Travers spent his last three years travelling around Europe's slum zoos and a TV documentary that he made exposed the appalling suffering of thousands of animals. Travers died in Dorking, Surrey, aged 72. His widow, Virginia McKenna, carries on his work to help suffering animals, as does their son, Will Travers, who is chief executive of the Born Free Foundation.

Filmography

• The Wooden Horse (1950)
• Trio (1950)
• The Browning Version (1951) (uncredited)
• Hindle Wakes (1952)
• The Square Ring (1953)
• Street of Shadows (1953)
• Romeo and Juliet (1954)
• Geordie (1955)
• Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
• Bhowani Junction (1956)
• The Seventh Sin (1957)
• The Barretts of Wimpole Street as Robert Browning (1957)
• The Smallest Show on Earth (1957)
• Storm Over Jamaica (1958)
• The Bridal Path (1959)
• Gorgo (1961)
• Two Living, One Dead (1961)
• The Green Helmet (1961)
• The Invasion Quartet (1961)
• The Everglades as Rand in "The Hostage", syndicated US television series (1962)
• Lorna Doone, as John Ridd, 11 episodes (1963 TV series)
• Rawhide as Jeremiah O'Neal in "Incident at Two Graves" (1963)
• Born Free, as wildlife expert George Adamson (1966)
• Duel at Diablo (1966), as Scotty McAllister. A violent western starring James Garner and Sidney Poitier.
• The Lions Are Free (1967). Travers plays himself in the real-life sequel to the award winning film Born Free. With the help of conservationist George Adamson, he goes to a remote area of Kenya, Africa to find the lions who appeared in the film. This is a film with some scenes of George Adamson and Bill interacting with lions who are living free. James Hill who directed Born Free produced this film along with Bill Travers. In November 2006, this film and the film The Lion at World's End were both released on DVD.
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968)
• An Elephant Called Slowly (1969) Travers plays himself in this lighthearted drama. He and wife Virginia McKenna go to Kenya, to housesit. They encounter some elephants and get advice from their friend and wildlife expert George Adamson. Also starring elephant Eleanor (Daphne Sheldrick orphan) and Pole Pole. Pole Pole's suffering and death at a zoo were to later spur Bill and wife Virginia to form Zoo Check, later called the Born Free Foundation.
• Ring of Bright Water (1969), as Graham Merrill
• The Lion at World's End (1971) Travers plays himself in this feature-length film, for the most part filmed as it happened. A London-born lion is taken to Kenya, to live a free life with the help of George Adamson.
• The Belstone Fox (1973), Played Tod
• Lovejoy, as Duncan, 2 episodes (British TV series, 1992)
• To the Manor Born, as Arthur Smith (Tramp) in Tramps and Poachers, late 1970s series 2 number 4

External links

• Bill Travers at the Internet Movie Database
• Photos of Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna and George Adamson and Lions.