BIOGRAPHY ... ERNEST MARSH
Ernest Marsh was born in Folkestone Kent on 11th March 1945 shortly before the end of the Second World War. His movements for the next 17 years were determined by his fathers work with the GPO Engineering department although even at this time .he was in love with the cinema.
After being put through Agricultural College, he woke one morning, packed a bag and flew the nest to follow his dream and start what was to become for him an incredible journey through the film industry from humble projectionist to the dizzy heights of Sound Supervisor in one of the country’s leading sound studios, Warwick Sound in London’s film jungle Wardour Street, West One.
The story is the people, the movies and the one director who was the only person ever who did not see eye to eye with him.
Along the way many of the biggest stars, producers, directors and technicians from the golden age as well as upcoming and future Oscar winners would become his friends, Directors including Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell, Michael Winner, Bill Forsyth and on English language dubbing the likes of Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Luis Bunuel
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Stars included Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sean
Connery and Flora Robson.
The back room technicans, Frank Clarke, Gordon Hales ,Jimmy Shields and Teddy Mason to name but a few but without them there would be no movies.
Ernest managed this without a single lesson, all learnt by watching and listening, in particular to one man Fred Ryan who taught him to use his eyes to get out of a troublesome situations, something that Fred never realised he was doing.
At this time in the mid 60s Wardour Street was a vibrant two way street living up to 24 hours a day, sometimes 6 days a week with cans of film stacked high on trolleys buzzing side to side in a frenzy with the flowing traffic.
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It was here Ernest arrived on September 26th 1966, arrived not knowing what to expect and it was also here on December 22nd 2011 that retirement due to the advances in Digital technology ended his love affair with that dream.
Ernest Marsh 12th December 2023
