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James Laurenson was born on New Zealand's North Island, the son of an amateur actor. He studied at Canterbury University College in Christchurch, where he made his theatrical debut playing Hamlet, directed by mystery writer Dame Ngaio Marsh. In 1965, he relocated to England and spent a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. Having established himself as a Shakespearean actor, Laurenson returned to the RSC in the 1970s, taking on roles such as Charles the Dauphin in Henry VI, Cassio in Othello, and Orlando in As You Like It. At the National Theatre, he appeared in Macbeth as Macduff and in Hamlet as both the Ghost and the Player King. One of his more recent roles was Vladimir in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal in Bath.
Laurenson initially struggled to break into screen acting. His television debut came in 1968, playing a priest in the long-running soap Coronation Street. He then portrayed Dick Johnson, the youngest pirate, in an early BBC adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1968). Between various BBC Shakespeare productions and small film roles, his breakthrough came in 1972 when he starred as Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Boney' Bonaparte, a half-Aboriginal officer with exceptional tracking skills, in the series Boney. Filmed on rugged outback locations, the show was highly popular in Australia and the UK, though not in the US, and also found success in Germany. The character inspired record producer Frank Farian to name his disco group Boney M. after him. Despite the controversy around casting a non-Aboriginal in the role, the series was a major hit.
To avoid typecasting, Laurenson chose not to continue for a third season and returned to England. Over the next five decades, he became a familiar guest star on numerous TV shows, often portraying morally complex, pompous, or villainous characters. His credits include appearances on Space: 1999 (1975), Remington Steele (1982), Van der Valk (1972), Sharpe (1993), Silent Witness (1996), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996), and Hustle (2004). More recently, he played the Earl of Shrewsbury in Wolf Hall (2015), Oxford Professor George Amory in Endeavour (2012), Professor Hilary Ambrose, a friend of Father Brown (2013), and Royal Physician Dr. John Weir in The Crown (2016).
Laurenson lived for many years in the market town of Frome, Somerset, England. He passed away on 18 April 2024 at the age of 84.
