Hugh Dempster, Veteran Stage, Film Actor, Dies

Hugh Dempster, whose stage credits include dozens of productions stretching from London’s West End to Broadway and who portrayed Col. Pickering in “My Fair Lady” more than 2,500 times, is dead of heart failure, it was learned this week.

He was 86 when he died April 30 in Chicago where his actress wife was touring with the play “Bony Kern,” said his longtime friend, Jonathan Daly.

Dempster also was a veteran of about 60 films, including “The Student’s Romance,” “Waltz Time,” “Babes in Bagdad,” “Moulin Rouge” and was Prince Oblonsky in the 1947 version of “Anna Karenina” which starred Vivien Leigh.

A Royal Air Force veteran of World War II, Dempster began on stage in “The Little Shopper” in London and went on to parts in “Priscilla and the Profligate,” “Charm School,” “East of Suez” and “The Saint” with George Sanders.

Although Robert Coote originated the Pickering role on Broadway, Dempster came to be associated with it throughout America, where he played the part in dozens of theaters (including the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1957) for six years.

In London he and his wife, Emma Trekman, operated the Wimbledon Theatre Repertory Co.