- Was a major in the British army during WW2 and then played one in The Guns of Navarone (1961).
- Awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1952 Queen's Birthday Honours List and made a Knight Bachelor in the 1985 Queen's New Year Honours List for his services to drama.
- Formed his own theatre company, "Compass", which toured the provinces introducing theatre to new audiences.
- Served with writer Anthony Burgess ("A Clockwork Orange") in the British military during WW2.
- Discovered Robert Shaw and Barbara Jefford.
- Appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Hamlet (1948) and Lawrence Xứ Ả Rập (1962). He also appeared in three other Best Picture nominees: Pygmalion (1938), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).
- Played a supporting role in two unrelated films that featured Sherlock Holmes attempting to solve the Jack the Ripper murders: A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder by Decree (1979). He played Dr. Murray in the former and Sir Charles Warren in the latter. In both films, Frank Finlay played Inspector Lestrade.
- Ex-son-in-law of Nicholas Hannen.
- He narrated a number of documentary films including "This Is Lloyds" (1962) .
- His wife gave up her acting career at 30 to help him when he took over the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford Upon Avon.
- Was very proud of his family's roots in the Isle of Man. For a number of years he was the "voice" of the Manx Museum, guiding tourists around each of the sections. The surname "Quayle" comes from the Manx Gaelic for "son of Paul", and is related to the name MacPhail.
- He was nominated for Broadway's 1956 Tony Award as Best Featured or Supporting Actor (Dramatic) for his role in the play, "Tamburlaine the Great.".
- Was a devoted and active supporter of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. He also narrated party political TV broadcasts on behalf of the Conservative Party.
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