Richard Waring

Richard Waring (born Richard Waring Stephens; 27 May 1911 – 18 January 1993) was an American actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in the film Mr. Skeffington (1944). Richard Waring was born Richard Stephens in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire in 1911, the son of Thomas E. Stephens, a painter, whose portrait of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower hangs in the Smithsonian Gallery of Presidents. He later adopted Waring, his mother's (Evelyn M. Stephens) maiden name, as his stage name. Waring was the brother of Peter John Stephens, a playwright and author.

Waring began his career in 1931 with Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater in New York City in minor roles in Romeo and Juliet, Camille, and Cradle Song. In 1940, he played opposite Ethel Barrymore in The Corn Is Green and later with Le Gallienne and was signed to play the role in Hollywood opposite Bette Davis, but entered the army during World War II. Before that, he was filmed in his best-known screen role in Mr. Skeffington (1944) as Fanny Trellis' brother Trippy.

After his war service he appeared on Broadway as the Duke of Buckingham in Henry VIII, John Shand in J.M. Barrie's What Every Woman Knows and as the Captain in George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. He also appeared in many performances of the American Shakespeare Festival directed by John Houseman and at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City, playing both bit roles and major parts in many of Shakespeare's plays. He acted with Katharine Hepburn in The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and one performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream as Oberon before she had to leave the production.