John Duncan Macrae (20 August 1905 – 23 March 1967) was a Scottish actor, working mainly in stage but also television and film.
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Life and career
Macrae was born at 118 Kirkland Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, the fourth of the six children of James Macrae, a sergeant in the Glasgow police force, and his wife, Catherine Graham. He attended Allan Glen's School and matriculated in the engineering faculty at Glasgow University in 1923–1924, but did not graduate. He trained as a schoolteacher at Jordanhill College, where he met Ann H Mcallister, the voice coach, who was a profound influence on his life. He taught in Glasgow until he became a professional actor in 1943, after a successful amateur drama career.
He first made his name as a comic actor of distinction with Curtain Theatre, an amateur group, in 1937, in the title role of Robert McLellan's Jamie the Saxt, a performance which became his "signature" role in the early years. In 1938, he directed Curtain's production of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler at the Lyric Theatre in Glasgow. He was then a member, along with Stanley Baxter, of the early Citizens' Theatre company in Glasgow, founded during the war in 1943. In 1948, he played Oliphant, the Laird of Stumpie, in the first performance of Robert Kemp's Let Wives Tak Tent, a translation into Scots of Molière's L'école des femmes, at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh.