Shakespearean actor found his best role as dialect coach to stars of the screen

Andrew Jack, who has died aged 76, was an internationally regarded dialect coach who worked on some of the largest-grossing films, including The Avengers, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings series.

He appeared in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi as General Ematt, as well as in Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. His career was built at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-avon.

He was born Andrew Duncan Hutchinson in Finchley, north London, the only child of Stephen Jack, an actor for television and film as well as being a voice actor on radio.

He encouraged

Andrew to attend the Arts Educational College, from which he embarked on an acting career, aged 18.

His first break came when he joined the Italian theatre tour of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Back in London, he was accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he spent some of the happiest days of his life ‘‘mucking about’’ in Stratford.

He quit the RSC in 1967. Meanwhile, his father was at home in Finchley spending more and more time helping fellow actors produce regional accents for theatre, film and television. The term ‘‘dialect coach’’ was not used then, and the skill wasn’t formally taught. Stephen had a great ear from his years of performing around Britain. He didn’t read phonetics and had never had formal training.

Andrew returned to London and joined his father in becoming an additional dialogue replacement actor, voicing 14 different characters in Doctor Zhivago, and even performing in a scene with Stephen. When I wateched it with him in Atlanta in 2018, he was astounded that he couldn’t tell which voice was his father’s and which was his.

Looking for adventure, he joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation (now British Airways) in the late 1970s as a flight steward. For 61⁄2 years he flew around the world and taught himself phonetics, annotating any interesting accents he heard and devoting himself to learning how to hear, perform and teach accents and dialects.

While flying, he met Felicity Filmore, whom he married in 1974. Two children came in 1978 and 1982.

Andrew quit flying and began teaching voice, accents and dialect at the London

Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. But the marriage disintegrated and Andrew left to live on a canal boat.

Then the phone rang. It was Steven Spielberg’s office wondering if Andrew was available to teach accents on a film to be called Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. After that came The Last of the Mohicans and others, before Robert Downey Jr sought his help in filming Chaplin, about Charlie Chaplin, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough.

Andrew had found his ‘‘thing’’. Downey won a Bafta for best actor and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe.

Andrew went from film to film, though he never left behind life on a bigger boat, on the Thames. He saw his children when he could, but work was demanding. When I met him, he had been separated from his second wife, Paula, since 2012. What I saw could be described only as a 6ft 2in gypsy rock star. With collar-length silver hair, Raybans,

Levi’s and a blue sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, he had a presence that could wipe out a red carpet in two seconds flat.

He spent half of the past few years in Australia, in our home on Tamborine Mountain, in the Gold Coast hinterland in Queensland. He would sit on the balcony looking over the hills, all the way down to the coastline, gin blossom in hand, dog sleeping at his feet.

He loved Australia. Absolutely loved it. He always wanted to own a black Commodore V8 and to go to Bathurst.

He was in London working on The Batman film a month ago when he contracted coronavirus. He believed he was doing the right thing by staying at home on his boat, self-isolated.

I am glad and not surprised that, when his time came, he died wrestling a world-stopping pandemic. It was the one thing big enough to take him out.

He is survived by Gabrielle, children Katherine (Kit) and Rupert, grandchildren Oliver and Alice, and his stepchildren Will and Mimi. – Sydney Morning Herald