John Moffatt was a renowned stage actor known for his classical technique, impeccable taste, and valour. Born in Badby, Northamptonshire, he was the elder son of royal household workers, Ernest and Letitia Moffatt. He attended East Sheen county school and took drama lessons at Toynbee Hall in the East End while working as a bank clerk in the City.
Moffatt made his professional debut at the Perth Rep in 1945, where he forged a lifelong friendship with Alec McCowen. He then worked in rep at Oxford, Windsor, and Bristol before making his London debut at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in Moliere's Tartuffe.
His breakthrough came in 1956 at the Royal Court, where he appeared in Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan and Nigel Dennis's Cards of Identity. He then helped repair a box-office deficit in Wycherley's The Country Wife, which transferred from the Court to the Adelphi.
Moffatt joined the Old Vic in 1959, where he formed an unshakeable alliance with Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, Moyra Fraser, and Joss Ackland. They continued their friendship with a weekly ritual of Sunday lunches for many years.
He was a beacon in his profession, greatly admired and loved, not least because he had worked with almost everyone of note in the business, from his idols Noel Coward and John Gielgud, to his best friends Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, and Joan Plowright.
Moffatt's last decade or so on the London stage included Ben Travers's The Bed Before Yesterday, playing a meek, insufficient husband to a suddenly rampaging Plowright; a lovely, acidulous theatre producer in The Play's the Thing at Greenwich in 1979; and another foreign office official in Ronald Harwood's Interpreters in 1985.
His last significant West End appearance was in 1984 as Witwoud in William Gaskill's great Chichester festival production of The Way of the World, with Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright.
