Wissenswertes

Although Joseph Losey, who directed Lawson in the American play "The Wooden Dish", always insisted that he was one of the greatest actors he had ever known, the working relationship between them was never an easy one. Well before the end of rehearsals, Lawson had started calling his director "lousy Losey". In the end, Lawson resigned from the cast of the production in order to take a much smaller supporting role in another play (John Van Druten's "Bell, Book And Candle"), thereby ensuring the closure of "The Wooden Dish".

Christopher Lee considered Lawson to be "the greatest actor in the world", one who "had the divine madness"; however, the one time they worked together, on a segment of a minor TV series, was a disappointment for Lee, as Lawson was, he reported in his memoirs, drunk throughout.

Uncle of Bernard Fox and brother of Gerald Lawson.

When someone pointed out to him at his stage name was the same as Sir Wilfred Lawson, the great temperance advocate, his response was 'I'll drink to that'.

He was a member of the Alfred Denville company at the Rhyl Pavilion.

Tony Randall, who appeared with Lawson on stage in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," considered him the greatest actor with whom he had ever worked; Randall recalled a dramatic highlight in the play when Elizabeth Barrett's father, played by Lawson, recognizes his own monstrousness, and, without registering an audible reaction, expresses his awareness visibly with a deep purple blush that rises in his face to the top of his head, which, according to Randall, occurred precisely that way in every performance.

On one occasion he got very drunk at lunchtime with fellow cast member Robert Newton (another renowned drinker) shortly before a matinee performance of Shakespeare. When he staggered on stage as a disheveled John of Gaunt he announced to the audience "If you think I'm drunk wait until you see the Duke of York" (although the language used was a little stronger than 'drunk').