Biographie
Classically-trained English character actor Paul Shelley was born as Paul Matthews in Leeds, Yorkshire, one of three siblings to Henry Matthews, a shop steward, and his wife Kathleen. His older brother was the actor Francis Matthews, who became best known on television as the voice of Captain Scarlet and as Francis Durbridge 's genteel sleuth Paul Temple (1969).
Paul Shelley's interest in the acting profession began at university. He graduated from RADA in 1966 and since forged a substantial career on the stage, which began with repertory companies and at the Bristol Old Vic and has included lengthy tenures with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. His noted theatrical performances have included Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Edmund, the main antagonist in King Lear, title roles in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra (both at Shakespeare's Globe) and Duncan in Macbeth at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and, subsequently, at the West End and in New York. He has also directed for the stage at the Theatre Royal in York and at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. As a prolific narrator/reader of audiobooks, Shelley has been a three-time winner of the Audiophile Earphones Award.
In 1968, Shelley made his screen debut as Frank, nephew of the Cheeryble Twins in a BBC adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (1968). More than a decade later, he popped up in another Dickensian classic, this time playing the dual role of Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities (1980). His recurring role as a charismatic British agent in the World War II drama series Secret Army (1977) proved sufficiently popular to spawn the similarly-themed The Fourth Arm (1983), in which Shelley was now first-billed as the commander of a special unit parachuted into occupied France to destroy Nazi V-1 missile launch sites. He had another leading role as a jazz-drumming country doctor in Paradise Postponed (1986), an ITV/Thames production based on a novel by John Mortimer (he later reprised this character in a sequel, Titmuss Regained (1991)). Among many offerings, Shelley has appeared as guest actor in Blake's 7 (1978) (as Terran Federation Major Provine), Doctor Who (1963) (Minister of Persuasion, a shape-changing android) and Midsomer Murders (1997) (Barnaby's superior, Chief Constable Richard Lovell).
Paul Shelley has been married since 1999 to the actress Paula Stockbridge. They met while on tour with a stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Shelley was quoted in a 2003 article for the regional newspaper The Northern Echo, saying "Our relationship developed over the snooker table. We were the only two members of the company who played snooker. And what else were we going to do in the afternoons?"
