Vix Cox - Times Obituary

Film producer who worked with many big names of the 1950s and 1960s British cinema and then turned to schoolmastering

Viv Cox won respect, and some fame, producing films at Pinewood Studios and for Rank. Among the better known actors he worked with were Dirk Bogarde and Hattie Jacques. Spike Milligan, the Goon Show comic genius, was another of his contemporaries.

Cox's career in films began after demobilisation in 1946. After working with Sydney, Muriel and Betty Box at Shepherd's Bush Studios, he became associate producer to Betty Box and then producer at Pinewood Studios.

Among his early films were So Long at the Fair (with Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde, 1950), Father Brown (with Alec Guinness, 1954) and Bachelor of Hearts (with Hardy Kruger and Sylvia Syms, scripted by Cox's friends Leslie Bricusse and Frederic Raphael, 1958).
From 1959 to 1967 Cox worked as an independent producer and screenwriter for Rank Studios, producing such titles as Watch Your Stern (with Spike Milligan, Leslie Phillips, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Connor, 1960)and We Joined the Navy (with
Kenneth More, 1962). Between 1960 and 1976 Cox produced all the stage shows for the annual Royal Command Film Performance and hosted the royal party.

His lifelong love of France and good food were cleverly combined in a television series that he produced on French regional cooking, in which he motored around France in a powder-blue sports car, enjoying excellent fare and often featuring in front of the camera as well as behind it.

Vivian Alexander Cox was born in 1915 in Bangalore, South India, the second of five children of Winifred and Alexander Cox. He was educated in Switzerland, then at Cranleigh School and at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read English.

He did well academically, on the stage and in sports. At Cranleigh he starred under the direction of a young Michael Redgrave, who briefly taught at the school, in John Milton's Samson Agonistes, and Shakespeare's King Lear and Hamlet. At Cambridge he acted in two Footlights reviews, and his sporting prowess earned him a blue for hockey and four England caps in 1937.

After three years as head of English and Drama at Aldenham School, he joined the RNVR in 1940. He served on the minesweeping trawler HMS Euclase, was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant and selected to work in the Admiralty War Room.

While there, he set up the floating map room for Winston Churchill on HMS Duke of York, and accompanied the Prime Minister to Washington where, at President Roosevelt's request, he set up a similar map room in the White House. Cox later recalled a late-night conversation when Churchill said to Cox of Roosevelt: "It is a great mercy for all mankind that he's been called to this great office at this moment in history."

After a brief respite from the war in London, spending time at Denham Studios with Noel Coward, Bernard Miles and John Mills among others, in 1942 Cox was appointed Junior Staff Officer (Flag Lieutenant) to Vice-Admiral Bruce Fraser and served on HMS Anson.

The following year he sailed with Fraser, promoted Admiral, on HMS Duke of York, witnessing the sinking of the Scharnhorst. Other highlights of a remarkable war career included entertaining King George VI for 90 minutes with impersonations of naval characters, and being with Fraser for the Japanese surrender.

At the invitation of General McArthur, he was one of the first four Allied servicemen into Tokyo after the surrender, riding shotgun in a jeep. Later he recalled: "Strangely, people in the street didn't seem to see us. Whether they'd been told to ignore us, I don't know."

In 1967 Cox returned to his first profession and his alma mater, teaching English, French and Drama at Cranleigh School. A gifted and inspiring teacher, he taught for eight years, during which he also directed several plays, including Hassan with Juliet Stephenson.

From 1975 until his retirement in 1982 he worked with Sir Bernard Miles as administrator at London's Mermaid Theatre. In 1977 he translated Henri de Montherlant's The Fire That Consumes, winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. He subsequently translated two other plays from the French, both per-formed in the US and directed by his friend, Louis Fantasia.

Cox was president of the Old Cranleighan Society, and among other donations gave the school the Vivian Cox Theatre — opened by Sir John Mills, and with a green-room facility donated by his friend and US entrepreneur, Harry C. Meyerhoff.

His wideranging experiences, memory and wit made Cox a popular raconteur. To his boss, Bruce Fraser, he was "a cross between Encyclopaedia Britannica and a court jester". To his family and many friends, he was an ebullient character with a great sense of humour, glittering lifestyle and an unrivalled propensity to name-drop.
Cox did not marry.

Vivian Cox, film producer and schoolmaster, was born on . 1915. He died on April 27, 2009 aged 93

OC legend Viv Cox dies aged 93

We are very sorry to have to report that Viv Cox died peacefully in his sleep on Monday, April 27, 2009. He was 93.

There are few individuals so inexorably linked to Cranleigh and Old Cranleighans. Viv was one of a rare breed who both went to the school and returned to teach there, and in retirement built his home in Edgefield Close so he was able to keep on top of daily life at Cranleigh. Quietly and without fuss, he helped many past and present Cranleighans, his pleasure coming from seeing them thrive in an environment which had given him so much pleasure.

As a sportsman, Viv was a one of those multitalented games players which seemed to be so common in the inter-war years. At Cranleigh he was a colour in all three major sports, and also boxed and played fives. He went on to represent English Public Schools at rugby, and but for a serious knee injury playing for the Old Cranleighans against the School, would in all likelihood have won a Blue at Cambridge. As it was, he became the first OC to be capped by England at hockey.

His war was remarkable, and those of us fortunate enough to sit down and chat with Viv about his exploits were entertained for hours with stories of Churchill, Roosevelt and many A-list celebrities. Undoubtedly many of these stories will come out in the coming weeks.

A thespian at heart, he went on to become a leading British film producer and then assisted Bernard Miles at the Mermaid Theatre, before returning to Cranleigh to teach. His lasting memorial at Cranleigh is the Viv Cox theatre.

He played a little cricket for the OCs but kept abreast of the comings and goings, and in 2001, aged 85, accompanied the OCCC on their Kenya tour, a trek which left many half his age wilting. Viv remained cheerful and energetic throughout. He was also a regular player for the OCHC in the two decades after the war.

"Vivian was my valued and special friend for 42 years, since we were new boys in the Common Room together in 1967,” Mike Payne said. “No friend has shared with me such a fund of reminiscence, so much of it connected to Cranleigh. His wit was legendary, all with a sense of timing honed in the theatre and film world he treasured. I have printed before a 2005 example, when I was driving him to Thames Ditton. Knowing that he was tired, I said: 'Vivian, if you want to have a sleep I'll shut up talking.' 'No,' said Vivian, 'I think the best way is for you to carry on.' "

Viv’s funeral will be private, but there will be an opportunity for us to celebrate his remarkable life and major contribution to the School and the OC community at a Memorial Service, to be held in the School Chapel early next year when it re-opens after its refurbishment.

Westcott astro opens at Prep School

Olympians turned up by the truck-load as Cranleigh Prep School opened their new artificial Westcott Pitch on April 17. There were 10 in all - including Dave Faulkner, Richard Mantell and Richard Leman - plus six national players to form an invitational side to take on the school's finest (past and present) in a special match.

Mike Wilson, head of Cranleigh Prep, said: "It's an important day for the school and it only seems, bearing in mind the long-standing association we have with the sport – having produced several national and Olympic players over the years - that the new pitch should be opened by such an illustrious line-up of figures in the world of international hockey."

The facility has been named after David Westcott, a former pupil at the prep and senior schools and who is currently a governor. He captained Great Britain at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, guiding them to a bronze medal. Five years earlier he had led Oxford University in a record Varsity win against Cambridge, scoring a hat-trick at Lord's in the days when the match was played on grass at cricket's headquarters.

The match also gave an opportunity for Steve Batchelor - gold medallist in Seoul in 1988 as well as the bronze four years earlier - to take on son Tom, a pupil at the senior school and who has just been selected for the England U16 squad.

Excellent facilities are synonymous with the school and the Westcott Pitch represents an inaugural project for the Cranleigh Foundation in enhancing them.

An OC side featuring, among others, David Knapp, Rob Merry, Helen Merry

OCHC to play School on January 3

After several years of trying, we are delighted to announce that the annual fixture against the School, which was first played in 1921, seven years before the official founding of the OCHC, will resume on January 3 when the School XI play an OC side mainly made up of leavers from the last two years. The game will start at 2.30pm at Thames Ditton.

"I appreciate the efforts of all concerned to ensure this game occurs which will be played for the Roger Loveland vase and will I hope become an annual event," said David Knapp.