Frank Hauser CBE, one of the most influential figures in the history of the Oxford Playhouse, has died aged 85.

Mr Hauser was artistic director from 1956 to 1973 and over those years is credited with revitalising the theatre.

Early in his career, he directed a young Richard Burton in Henry V and was later reunited with him when the star brought Elizabeth Taylor to perform Dr Faustus at the Playhouse in 1966.

Mr Hauser's Meadow Players companies included Judi Dench, Constance Cummings, Elisabeth Bergnet, Prunella Scales, Ian McKellen, Ronnie Barker and Edward Woodward.

Born in Cardiff in 1922, the son of a Polish property-dealer, Mr Hauser attended Cardiff High School where he was known for his musical talent.

After gaining a degree at Christ Church, Oxford, he joined the Royal Artillery before landing a job as a BBC radio trainee director.

There he worked on a wide range of programmes before being sacked after taking time off to co-direct Alec Guinness in Hamlet - setting him off on his theatrical career.

He enjoyed spells as resident director of Salisbury Arts Theatre and artistic director of the Coventry-based Midland Theatre Company.

But his dream was to put the Oxford Playhouse back on the map.

Many believed the theatre had been severely neglected - its heyday, when it hosted JB Fagan's company in the 1920s and Sir Ben Greet's in the 1930s, was long past when he took the reins.

But helped by a financial donation from Richard Burton, £1,500 from the Arts Council and £600 from a university fund, he slowly established its reputation as one of regional theatre's most adventurous stages.

An early success was Jean Anouilh's Dinner with the Family (1957) which launched a steady stream of successful London transfers.

Among them were Bernard Kops's The Hamlet of Stepney Green (1958), Marcel Achard's Rollo (1959), Santha Rama Rau's play from the EM Forster novel, A Passage to India, Aldous Huxley's The Genius and the Goddess (1962), Shaw's Misalliance and Sardou's Divorce à la Carte (1963), Jonson's Volpone, (1966) and Sartre's Kean (1971).

A diminishing Arts Council subsidy brought the enterprise to an end in 1974. Mr Hauser went on working as a director for the remaining 20 years of his career.

He was appointed CBE in 1968. He was unmarried and died on October 14.