Biography

John was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. After graduating from Edinburgh University with a B.Sc., he moved to London and worked with a variety of theatre groups and directors including Nancy Meckler and Pam Brighton. His solo performances "Come Again," began in 1978 then followed "Troubleshooter," "Members Only," "Dirty Money" and more recently "European Blues" all regarded across the globe as modern-physical-theatre-comedy classics. He has performed for every possible audience imaginable: the Queen of Denmark, African Bushmen, Russian spies, German riot-police, Japanese businessmen, Chiapas Indians, prisoners, pensioners, children. His first movie was the main part in Vana Paoli's 'Lungo il Fiume' (1989) and since then, has appeared in both features and shorts as much as his busy theatre schedule has allowed him. In 2001 at the Brooklyn Film Festival he won best actor award for Harley in No Man's Land (Nina Rosenmeier). in 2009 he starred as Quenzel in Blindspot which he also wrote with director Ad Bol: this won 5 prizes in various international festivals. More recently Johnny has been working making his own shorts in Spain and in workshop situations. In 2011 his short Backtracker won him best director & best actor at Girona Film Festival, Spain. He then appeared in Javier Llamazares half hour short and for this he again won a series of prizes for the portrayal of his character Oleg. He played that role in Russian. In 2018 he played in the magnificent Fishbone and played a small role in Paradise Hills with Emma Roberts.

- IMDb mini biography by: Johnny Melville

John was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. After graduating from Edinburgh University with a B.Sc., he moved to London and worked with a variety of theatre groups and directors including Nancy Meckler and Pam Brighton. His solo performances "Come Again," began in 1978 then followed "Troubleshooter," "Members Only," "Dirty Money" and more recently "European Blues" all regarded across the globe as modern-physical-theatre-comedy classics. He has performed for every possible audience imaginable: the Queen of Denmark, African Bushmen, Russian spies, German riot-police, Japanese businessmen, Chiapas Indians, prisoners, pensioners, children. His first movie was the main part in Vana Paoli's 'Lungo il Fiume' (1989) and since then, has appeared in both features and shorts as much as his busy theatre schedule has allowed him. In 2001 at the Brooklyn Film Festival he won best actor award for Harley in No Man's Land (Nina Rosenmeier). in 2009 he starred as Quenzel in Blindspot which he also wrote with director Ad Bol: this won 5 prizes in various international festivals. More recently Johnny has been working making his own shorts in Spain and in workshop situations. In 2011 his short Backtracker won him best director & best actor at Girona Film Festival, Spain. He then appeared in Javier Llamazares half hour short The Trench and for this he again won a series of prizes for the portrayal of his character Oleg. He played that role in Russian. In 2018 he played in the magnificent Fishbone. In 2019 Johnny appeared in Line Walker 2, then played in various short films, winning 2 prizes in India and Colombia for the short Primates. He appeared in the first season of the TV series, 30 Monedas directed by Alex de la Iglesia.

- IMDb mini biography by: Johnny Melville