Upon graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (he'd been a medical student before deciding upon an acting career), Welsh-born Mervyn Johns spent several years as a touring actor in England, Australia and South Africa. He made his first film appearance in 1934. Significant credits in Johns' film manifest include the roles of the confused "throughline" character Walter Craig in the nightmarish multistoried Dead of Night; Bob Cratchit in the 1951 Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol; Friar Lawrence in the 1954 filmization of Romeo and Juliet; and Captain Peleg in John Huston's Moby Dick (1956). The husband of concert pianist Alys Maude Steele-Payne and the father of actress Glynis Johns, Mervyn Johns had been widowed for several years when he wed his second wife, actress Diana Churchill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide