Fred Haggerty

Character & Episode: Dining Car Patron in A Sentimental Journey
Born: 14/07/1918, Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)
Died: c. 2002

Fred Haggerty was an occasional actor and stuntman who gained his first credited role in 1961 in the BBC series Gamble for a Throne. He worked on a number of well-known television series in the Sixties and Seventies which included Danger Man, The Prisoner and Blake's 7. He also appeared in films such as From Russia With Love (1963), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and Candleshoe (1977) which featured David Niven and a young Jodie Foster in the lead role. His last credit was in the film comedy Nuns on the Run in 1990 in which he played a gatekeeper.

John Hallam

Character & Episode: Johnny Crackan in It's Supposed to be Thicker Than Water
Born: 28/10/1941, Lisburn, Northern Ireland (as John William Francis Hallam)
Died: 14/11/2006, Clifton, Oxfordshire, England

Though born in Ireland, John Hallam's father was a superintendent at the London docks, who with his family was evacuated to Northern Ireland during the Second World War. The conflict over, the family soon moved back to England, where John later became a boarder at St Albans School in Hertfordshire.

He started his working life in a bank, later moving to the south coast where he sold deck chairs before he joined a local repertory company. He joined RADA in 1962, but missed a term due to cosmetic surgery to take an inch off his jaw. However, he learned to ride a horse to increase his chances of gaining work when he graduated. When he did, he soon joined Laurence Olivier in the National Theatre Company.

From 1967, he began a prolific screen career, in which he would often play hard men or military types, his 6 foot 3 inch frame making him ideal for such roles. He started in Much Ado About Nothing - a National Theatre production screened by the BBC in 1967 - and was soon seen in the films The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968), Carry On Up the Khyber (1968), Murphy's War (1971), Anthony and Cleopatra (1972) and cult horror The Wicker Man (1973). On television in the Seventies, John appeared in Jason King (1972), Lord Peter Wimsey (1973), The Pallisers (1974), Public Eye (1975) and was a regular in The Regiment (1972), Moonbase 3 (1973), The Boy Dominic (1976) and Wings (1977-78). Later in 1979 John played Thomas Mallen in The Mallens, arguably his most high profile television role.

In the Eighties, he appeared in Dragonslayer (1981), The Black Adder (1983), Lifeforce (1985) and in 1986 played Captain Parker in the adventure series Return To Treasure Island, which starred Brian Blessed as Long John Silver. He was a regular in EastEnders for three years from 1988 and in 1990 he was briefly seen in Emmerdale. In 1993 he had a role in the popular children's drama Grange Hill. His last television appearance was in 2000 when he featured in a serialisation of Arabian Knights, though he provided the voice of the giant in The Selfish Giant in 2003. John, though tall with a tough guy image, was actually a keen gardener and loved the countryside. His cousin is Clive Mantle (1957-), who starred as Little John in Robin of Sherwood and as Mike Barratt in Casualty.

In his home life, John was married in 1966 to theatrical mask-maker Vicky Brinkworth, whom he met whilst with the National Theatre Company. The couple had one son and three daughters, but the relationship ended in divorce many years later.

Olivia Hamnett

Character & Episode: Ann Soames in Just for the Record
Born: 13/02/1943, St Helens, Lancashire, England (as Olivia Jane Hamnett)
Died: 01/11/2001, Malvern, Melbourne, Australia

The daughter of an architect, Olivia Hamnett won a two-year scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and her professional acting career commenced soon after she left. She progressed to appearing in London's West End, notably playing Lady Penelope in the musical Charlie Girl at the Adelphi Theatre, alongside its star Dame Anna Neagle. During her run in the production, Olivia first met her future husband, the actor-singer Peter Regan (1933- ), and when Neagle travelled with the show to Australia in 1971, Olivia and Peter followed her to reprise their roles. Olivia soon came to the realisation that she wished to emigrate to Australia, though for a while she worked in both that country and the United Kingdom, before settling in Australia with her husband by the mid-1970s.

Olivia's British screen career comprised a relatively small number of works as a result of her focus on the theatre. On television, she made appearances in series such as Compact (1964), Department S (The Treasure of the Costa Del Sol, 1969) and Bachelor Father (1971). She won her first recurring role in the BBC situation comedy Son of the Bride (1973). However, her screen career took a new turn in Australia. She is well remembered for contributions to Australian favourites such as Rush (1974), an adventure series in which she played a character called Sara Lucas (Best Actress Award in the Television Society of Australia Penguin Awards), Return to Eden (1983 and 1986) and The Power, The Passion (1989-1990). She also worked often for Crawford Productions, appearing in several of their series including Division 4 (three episodes between 1972 and 1975), Matlock Police (1974), Homicide (four episodes between 1974 and 1976), The Sullivans (between the late 1970s and early 1980s), Bobby Dazzler (a starring role as Della McDermott in 1977-1978) and Cop Shop (1979). She was probably best known for her performance during 1981 and 1982 as Kate Petersen in the long-running Grundy-Network Ten television drama series Prisoner (also known as Prisoner: Cell Block H).

Olivia also featured in the Australian films The Last Wave (1977), in which she co-starred with American actor Richard Chamberlain, The Earthling (1980) and Joe Wilkinson (1999).

Olivia remained married to husband Peter Regan until her death from a brain tumour in 2001.

Robert Harbin

Character & Episode: Magician (George) in It's Supposed to be Thicker Than Water
Born: 14/02/1908, Balfour, South Africa (as Edward Richard Charles Williams)
Died: 12/01/1978, Westminster, London, England

Robert Harbin was a well-known magician and writer. He is credited as the inventor of a number of classic illusions and became an authority on origami. His started as a magician whilst still in South Africa, and by his own admission, he was at first poor. He came to England at 20, and found work in the magic department of Gamages toy shop. Whilst demonstrating magic to the public, he began to build up his own magic act and performed in theatres under the stage name Ned Williams. Soon he hired an assistant named Dorothy Hall and, not very much later, in 1932, married her, making the assistant role a permanent one. Then for three years he appeared in the Maskelyne's Mysteries magic show in various London theatres, adopting what would become his familiar stage name of Robert Hardin in 1932. Harbin was his mother's maiden name and Robert was part of the name of his idol, the great magician Jean-Robert Houdin.

Robert would become one of the first illusionists to make the transition from stage performing to television, appearing in the BBC TV show Variety in 1937 and in his own show which began in 1940. He developed a number of new tricks, including the Neon Light and the now ubiquitous Zig Zag Girl. His lesser known inventions include the Aztec Lady, the Blades of Opah, and Aunt Matilda's Wardrobe. Much of his inventive genius was put into written form and he is known as one of the most prolific authors on the subject of magical effects.

In 1953, Robert appeared in a minor part as a magician in the film The Limping Man, produced by Cy Endfield. In the same year, Robert and a friend of Endfield - Gershon Legman (1917–1999) - discovered a common interest in the Japanese art of paper-folding. Robert wrote many books on the subject, beginning with Paper Magic (published in 1956). He was the first Westerner to use the word origami for this art-form and was the first President of the British Origami Society. He also presented a series of origami programmes for ITV and wrote in its Look-In children's magazine in the 1970s.

His screen career in dramatic works is limited to just a handful of credits, his most notable being as Pelican in the family drama The Pelicans and the Pirates in 1955.

Doris Hare MBE

Character & Episode: Madame Hanska in But What a Sweet Little Room
Born: 01/03/1905, Bargoed, Monmouthshire, Wales (as Doris Breamer Hare)
Died: 30/05/2000, Denville Hall, Northwood, London, England

Born into a theatrical family, Doris Hare made her first stage appearance as a babe-in-arms, aged just three weeks. Her first professional engagement, a speaking role on stage, came at the age of three years, and as a child appeared in theatre all over the country playing in juvenile touring troupes. She would later go solo and would be known as 'Little Doris Hare'. Doris soon broadened her experience appearing in music hall, plays, cabaret and pantomimes. Her three sisters also became actresses. Doris later appeared in a number of plays written by well-known playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Alan Bennett, Pinero and Harold Pinter. Doris was also on radio by the Thirties, and was hostess of Shipmates Ashore, the BBC's programme for the Merchant Navy, work which earned her an MBE in 1941.

Doris made her film debut as early as 1935 but would not appear regularly until the late 1940s. During the Sixties, she was seen in a number of television series which included A House Called Bell Tower, The Avengers and appeared occasionally in Coronation Street playing various characters in 1961 and one called Alice Pickens in 1969. Also during this time she spent a year with the National Theatre, three years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed with the Chichester Festival Theatre company for several seasons. Doris though is best remembered for her appearance as Mum in the popular sitcom On the Buses alongside Reg Varney and Stephen Lewis. She had taken over this role from Cicely Courtneidge, who featured only in the first series in 1969. The series ran until 1973 and spawned three spin-off films in which Hare recreated her small-screen role - On the Buses (1971), Mutiny on the Buses (1972) and Holiday on the Buses (1973). The cast also performed a stage version of the popular series in Vancouver, Canada, in 1988. Doris later appeared in three Confessions films with Robin Askwith and Tony Booth. During the Eighties, although well into her seventies, she appeared as a semi-regular in a number of series, most notably Diamonds, Comrade Dad and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. She made her last screen appearance in 1994.

Doris won a Variety Club of Great Britain Special Award for her contributions to show business in 1982. She was married to geneticist and psychiatrist John Alexander Fraser Roberts (1899-1987) from 1941 to 1973, the union ending in divorce. She did not remarry. Doris Hare died in the actors' home Denville Hall in Northwood. She left two daughters.

Juliet Harmer

Character & Episode: Miss Holliday in You Can Always Find A Fall Guy
Born: 11/05/1941, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England (as Juliet Linda Harmer)

Juliet Harmer's father was a Harley Street doctor, and as a child she went to a boarding school in Hampshire, before finishing her education in Kent. She began as an amateur actress whilst at Homerton College in Cambridge. However, she trained as a primary school teacher, specialising in art, before trying her hand as a serious actress, having been persuaded by a parent to have a go in the profession. She then taught for two years and during this time took evening classes at a drama school. Afterwards she joined the BBC as a Schools Television presenter, working on series including English by Television, and was then offered a role in the experimental film The Peaches, which marked the start of her professional acting career. Her first dramatic screen performances were in two episodes of the medical soap opera Emergency Ward 10 in October 1963. Other early appearances were in series including Armchair Mystery Theatre (Time and Mr Madingley), The Avengers (The Town of No Return) and Danger Man (Sting in the Tail and The Man on the Beach). Her most famous role came in 1966 when she played regular character Georgina Jones in Adam Adamant Lives!, with Gerald Harper in the lead role - the series being the BBC's attempt to replicate the success of ITV's The Avengers. It was reasonably successful, lasting two seasons, and remains a cult favourite. Juliet had been a late replacement for the role and chosen out of three hundred applicants. Juliet later revealed that she was never screen tested for the role.

Like many Randall actors, Juliet also appeared in sister series Department S, figuring in two episodes, The Man in the Elegant Room and Ticket to Nowhere. She also made two appearances in The Persuaders!, another series from the same 'stable', featuring as Prue in The Old, the New and the Deadly and That's Me Over There alongside Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. Other than these appearances, her television roles would be infrequent, particularly after the Sixties had drawn to a close.

Juliet started to concentrate on painting when she moved with her family to the Cotswolds in 1970. In 1978, she retired from acting to live a quiet life in a country cottage in the Cotswolds and become a full-time artist. She briefly returned to acting for walk-on part in Paris by Night in 1988. Juliet has also been a successful author and illustrator, publishing several books, which include children's stories and an illuminated manuscript celebrating the healing properties of herbs and flowers. In recent years she has also staged art exhibitions in Gloucester and London, which have led to several of her paintings being sold and prints made and sold of others.

In her home life, Juliet married actor William Squire (1917-1989) in 1967, a partner who was twenty-four years her senior. Squire featured in A Sentimental Journey, the Randall and Hopkirk episode filmed directly before Juliet's You Can Always Find a Fall Guy. The marriage lasted for about six years before ending in divorce. Her second marriage was to the British stage actor Robert Walker (1936-75, birthname Alexander Walker Stewart), and the couple had a daughter, Jessie, born in 1974. Juliet is now married to the theatre director Bill Alexander. They have one daughter, Lola.

Victor Harrington

Character & Episode: Theatre Audience Member in That's How Murder Snowballs
Born: 27/08/1909, Casal Paola, Malta (as Victor James Harrington)
Died: 23/07/1980, Brighton, East Sussex, England

Victor Harrington was a professional extra who made more than three hundred film and television appearances in his career. His debut came in the mid-1930s, and over the next forty-odd years the vast majority of his appearances would similarly go unrecognised.

Generally, he had non-speaking roles, though he did appear in such notable films as Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). His last known appearance was in 1976 when he played a monk in the horror film The Omen. In his personal life, he was married to Margot Littlefair. His daughter Victoria Harrington (1944-2018) was also an actress.

Robin Hawdon

Character & Episode: Grant in The Smile Behind the Veil
Born: 28/03/1939, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England (as James Robin Hawdon Oldroyd)

A dependable supporting actor, Robin Hawdon attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, graduating in 1959. He began his screen career in 1961 with an uncredited appearance in the film The Day The Earth Caught Fire. Robin would occasionally gain minor roles throughout the Sixties, most notably in Department S (1969) and in the feature film Bedazzled (1967), which starred Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. His best remembered film role was as a caveman in the Hammer film When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1970). A year earlier he also had a prominent 'Bondian' role in Zeta One, a low-budget science fiction sex comedy starring Charles Hawtrey and James Robertson-Justice that was received exceptionally poorly but which has developed a cult following as one of the 'turkeys' of British cinema. On television, his face became well known to British viewers through his appearances in popular series including the BBC soap opera Compact and the Thames Television situation comedy Robin's Nest. One of Robin's final screen appearances was in the television series Chalk and Cheese in 1979 alongside Michael Crawford. Afterwards, Hawdon curtailed his acting, concentrating instead on writing and directing.

Robin arguably met with his greatest successes in the theatre, both as an actor and playwright. He has appeared in a number of London West End plays, ranging from the title roles in Hamlet and Henry V to Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion and began writing his own plays in 1964. He founded the Bath Fringe Festival in the Eighties and became director of the Theatre Royal Bath, one of Britain's premier touring companies. He would later be the author of four novels: A Rustle in the Grass (Hutchinson's, 1984); The Journey (Hawthorn's, 2002), Survival of the Fittest (SBPRA, 2013) and Number Ten (Brown Dog Books, 2019). In 2017, his book of children's poems, Charley Poon's Pomes, was published by Clink Street.

In his personal life, Robin has been married to actress and psychoanalyst Sheila Davies for more than fifty years. The couple have two daughters, Lindsay and Gemma, four grandchildren and homes in Bath, the South of France and Australia. Considering his achievements in theatre, it is perhaps a shame that his film and television career has not been as extensive. He has a website: www.robinhawdon.com.

David Healy

Character & Episode: Bugsy Spanio in Murder Ain't What It Used to Be!
Born: 15/05/1929, Manhattan, New York, USA (as David Francis Healy)
Died: 25/10/1995, London, England

The son of an Australian immigrant father and a Texan mother who worked as a radio commentator, David Healy made a name for himself by playing American characters in British film and television productions. He spent most of his early life growing up in Texas, where he studied at the Dallas’ Southern Methodist University, majoring in drama there along with Larry Hagman, who became a good friend. He first came to Britain as member of a touring show while with the U.S. Air Force; Hagman was amongst the show's cast. Ultimately, David settled in Surrey, England, though would occasionally return to America.

David started his television career in the first half of the 1960s. In 1965, he played his first regular role as Staff Sergeant Miller in the largely forgotten BBC2 sitcom The Airbase. This series also featured Alan Gifford, the actor who would later play the nemesis of David's character Bugsy Spanio in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). David quickly became a familiar face on British television and made contributions to many shows including the ITC series The Saint (two episodes in 1964 and 1967), The Baron (The Island, 1967), Department S (The Soup of the Day, 1969), The Persuaders! (Element of Risk, 1971), Jason King (Flamingos Only Fly on Tuesdays, 1971) and, later, The Return of the Saint (The Arrangement, 1978). During the 1980s he had recurring roles in the popular American television soap opera Dallas, and his last television appearance was in a BBC serial adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1995.

On film, he made uncredited appearances in the James Bond films You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971), as well as credited turns in others including The Double Man (1967) and Assignment K (1968). In America, David appeared in such roles as a clergyman in Patton (1970) and Mr. Danvers in the superhero film Supergirl (1984).

David also had a lengthy stage career and acted in classic plays with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In 1975, he revisited his roots when he played Falstaff at a Shakespeare festival in Dallas. In 1983, Healy received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor of the 1982 theatre season for his role in Guys and Dolls. His performance as Nicely-Nicely Johnson was "show stopping" as he sung Sit down, You're Rocking the Boat and each night had to do a little encore mid-show. During the late 1980s he played Buddy Plummer in Sondheim's Follies at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. At the time of his death in 1995, he was about to start rehearsals for the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Slaughter City by Naomi Wallace.

Besides stage and screen, David also participated in radio productions as actor, reader and narrator. His vocal skills were employed for various characters featured in two Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68) and Joe 90 (1968-69), both of which were successful and have become cult classics. He also voiced the Right Door Knocker in film Labyrinth (1986), which starred Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie. Additionally, David was often employed to dub other actors whose attempts at American accents were less than convincing!

In his personal life, David was married to Peggy Walsh. The couple had two sons, William and Tim. David was a keen amateur polo player and his wife Peggy was the manager of Ham Polo Club in London - the David Healy Trophy is still played for in his memory. David died aged 66 after falling into a coma following a heart operation in London.

Maurice Hedley

Character & Episode: Colonel Chalmers in Who Killed Cock Robin?

Maurice Hedley was a distinctive actor with more than seventy credits to his name. He went into acting late in life, making his television debut during the 1950s, with an early credited role coming in December 1956 in The White Carnation, an edition of Play of the Week for ITV. He gained his first credited work on radio in October of the following year, when he was featured in the cast of the BBC Light Programme serialisation of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids.

Most of Maurice's credits were limited to guest appearances in television series. These included Emergency Ward 10, The Avengers, The Saint and Adam Adamant Lives! His final known credited screen work was in The Wednesday Play: The Sad Decline of Arthur Maybury (transmitted 29th October 1969), though his appearance in Who Killed Cock Robin? (filmed in 1968) was first screened some weeks after this in November 1969. Arguably the most high profile role in Maurice's career was as the British Prime Minister in the BBC science fiction serials A for Andromeda (1961) and The Andromeda Breakthrough (1962).

Drewe Henley

Character & Episode: Tony in A Sentimental Journey
Born: 1940, Malvern, Worcestershire, England (as Gordon Drewe Henley)
Died: 14/02/2016, Exeter, Devon, England

For more than a decade from the early Sixties, Drewe Henley was an in-demand supporting actor. Initially he attended Collyer's School Drama Club in late 1950s. Later, he attended the Slade School of Art, and then he and his friend James Scott raised £100 and the University College London Film Society helped provide the crew and equipment for their short film The Rocking Horse (1962). He then studied at the Central School of Drama. He made his first appearance on television in the drama The Badger Game (1962). In 1963 he married actress Jacqueline Pearce (1943-2018), best known for her role as Servalan in Blake's 7, though the couple would divorce in 1967. Following his television debut, Drewe soon gained minor roles in the films Heavens Above! (1963) with Peter Sellers and 633 Squadron (1964). In 1964 he directed a short film, Changes, which was written and produced by his friend James Scott. The work marked the first film role for Sir Anthony Hopkins, who took the lead role. By the end of the decade, he was featuring regularly as a guest artiste in a number of well known television series. These included Man In A Suitcase, UFO and The Avengers. In 1968 he married actress Felicity Kendall (who would later become well-known for her role in the BBC situation comedy The Good Life). The couple would have a son, Charley (who became a special effects technician), but this marriage also ended in divorce, in 1979.

Drewe's career slowed as the Seventies progressed. He also suffered depression and this contributed to the breakdown of his second marriage. One of his last acting roles was in Star Wars in 1977. Shortly after completing his work on the film, he was diagnosed with manic depression and retired from acting, his promising career cut short through illness. Drewe would later recover and marry for a third time in 1983. In recent years, Drewe and third wife Lyn ran a 'bed and breakfast' guest house in Devon and the couple were also involved in the local theatre at Colyton. Sadly Lyn passed away in September 2015 and Drewe himself died in hospital just five months later in February 2016 at the age of 75.

Patrick Holt

Character & Episode: Barry Jones in That's How Murder Snowballs
Born: 31/01/1912, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England (as Patrick George Parsons)
Died: 12/10/1993, London, England

The son of a Deputy Inspector General of the Indian Police, Patrick Holt spent some of his childhood in India with his uncle. He later went to Christ’s Hospital, a famous charity school in Britain. Whilst there he met Michael Wilding, another who would later go into acting, and the pair became lifelong friends. Patrick started his career using his real name of Patrick Parsons, changing his name to Patrick Holt in December 1946.

Patrick, in common with many actors, learned his trade in the theatre. He made his feature film debut (a minor uncredited role) in 1938 in the adventure film The Challenge. He had just landed a leading part in a London production when war broke out and he joined the army. He saw service in Burma, Singapore and India, often on secret missions behind enemy lines, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

After the war, he joined the J. Arthur Rank charm school and steadily established himself as a leading actor in 1950s 'second features'. He would go on to be dubbed "the Dennis Price of the B film" in Quinlan's Film Stars by film critic David Quinlan. Over a long career, Patrick amassed more than one hundred and fifty film and television credits, but by the Sixties was often relegated to supporting roles.

Patrick made a number of notable contributions on television in such shows as Ivanhoe (1958), The Vise (1955 to 1958), The Avengers (1963), The Saint (1967) and Poldark (1975 to 1977). Notable film work includes Genghis Khan (1965), Thunderball (1965) and The Wild Geese (1978).

By evolving into a character actor, he sustained his career into old age, working on stage and television as well as in the cinema, and he was still listed in the Spotlight casting directory at the time of his death. His first wife was the actress Sonia Holm (1920-1974), whom he married in 1948; the couple divorced five years later. In 1955, he married Sandra Dorne (1924-1992), with whom he had occasionally co-starred. The marriage was happy, and he is said never to have recovered from her death on Christmas Day, 1992. Patrick passed away the following year.

George Howe

Character & Episode: Brooks in The Smile Behind the Veil
Born: 19/04/1900, Valparaiso, Chile (as George Winchester Howe)
Died: 24/06/1986, Brighton, East Sussex, England

George Howe attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and then Christ Church College in Oxford. He trained for his career at RADA, graduating in 1924. His first professional appearance on the stage was at the Regent Theatre in 1923. He made his radio debut on 11th December of the same year (2LO London) with The Meredyll Quartette, when he and Elizabeth Pollock contributed imitations of London actors and actresses. His radio drama debut came some years later, with his earliest credited acting role being in Past and Present: The Past, "an hour in a mid-Victorian drawing-room", written by Tyrone Guthrie (transmitted on BBC 2LO London on 22nd January 1927). George took a further step in the later years of the 1930s by appearing on the nascent BBC Television service. Among his early television roles of that period were the BBC productions The Wooing of Anne Hathaway (transmitted 27th November 1938) and Marco Millions (8th January 1939).

The war interrupted his career but then in the late Forties he appeared in a number of BBC television plays including Richard of Bordeaux (transmitted 6th April 1947), The Little Dry Thorn (4th and 5th September 1947), Romeo and Juliet (5th October 1947) and The Coventry Nativity Play (24th and 29th December 1949). He would appear in a second BBC production of Richard of Bordeaux in 1955, taking again the role he played in the original version - Sir Simon Burley.

He is arguably best remembered for his contributions to The Pickwick Papers (a 1952-53 serialised BBC adaptation in which he played Samuel Pickwick), the BBC television play Sing For Your Supper (25th June 1957) and The Great Waltz (a 1972 film musical). In addition to his starring role in the BBC's The Pickwick Papers, he also featured for the corporation in two other 1950s adaptations of Charles Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby (1957) and Our Mutual Friend (1958-59). He made his last screen appearance in 1982 in the BBC Shakespeare King Lear play before retiring.

Stuart Hoyle

Character & Episode: Kim in That's How Murder Snowballs

Stuart Hoyle was an actor, not often seen on screen, who trained at Kensington Drama School, and whose screen credits were mainly limited to the 1960s. He seems to have made his television debut as a semi-regular in the 1962 BBC sci-fi series The Monsters, playing a character Police Constable Mills. Today, this serial is completely lost from the archives.

Stuart also played a pilot in the epic war film Battle of Britain (1969). Other screen contributions included Hadleigh (1969), Z Cars (1971) and the ITC television movie Madame Sin (1972) which starred Bette Davis. His final credited television appearance was in The Flaxton Boys in 1973. Stuart’s decade-long screen career only amounted to around a dozen feature film and television credits. In 1959, he married the actress Eva Whishaw, the couple having met during acting training at the Kensington Drama School.

John Hughes

Character & Episode: Bank Worker in Money to Burn
Born: 23/08/1934, Hereford, Herefordshire, England (as John Price Hughes)
Died: 07/03/2006, Brighton, East Sussex, England

John Hughes was supporting actor who made more than thirty screen appearances, mainly on television, in a long career which spanned more than thirty years. Born into a musically talented family, John, a gifted solo singer as a child, won a scholarship at the age of nine and rose to be a head chorister, inspiring in him a love of performing. On leaving school, he worked at H.P. Bulmer in Hereford and then served his National Service with the RAF in Aden, during which time he acted in and presented programmes on Radio Aden. On returning to Hereford, he acted in many productions of the Greeland Players and with the YMCA, finally moving to London in the late 1950s to become a professional actor.

John made a bright start to his career, as straight man to comedian Vic Oliver and went on to join theatre repertory companies in Basingstoke, Edinburgh, Farnham, Liverpool and Westcliff-on-Sea. His television career really took off in 1962 when he was cast as Police Constable Jones, a regular character in Dixon of Dock Green, and he made over fifty appearances in the series over the following two years. His television career however became sporadic, with occasional appearance in series such as Z Cars, Elizabeth R, Budgie and New Scotland Yard. His last screen appearance was in 1997 in the science fiction film The Fifth Element (pictured).

However, it was the theatre that was his great love. John appeared in many comedies on the West End stage and was a noted member of the Theatre of Comedy, for which he appeared in and sometimes directed a slew of productions including Ray Cooney's smash hit stage farce Run for Your Wife. He was also a well-respected teacher of drama at the Arts Educational School and the RADIUS summer schools.

Peter Hughes

Character & Episode: The Butler in Whoever Heard of a Ghost Dying?
Born: 20/05/1922, Kensal Rise, London, England (as Peter Clowe Hughes)
Died: 05/02/2019, London, England

Peter Hughes was a solid character actor with more than one hundred and fifty film and television appearances to his name. He was born in Kensal Rise, London, the only child of a single mother, and was partly raised in foster institutions. He initially trained as a draughtsman designing car chassis, and moved to Coventry when his mother died in 1939 to design armoured cars. There, he joined a small repertory company and helped establish the Talisman Theatre in 1942, where he worked following some years before gaining a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in late 1940s, making his professional debut in 1949.

In the 1950s, Peter was a stalwart of the Richmond Theatre repertory company, along with actress Anne Ridler, and he would enjoy long associations with this theatre and also the Watford Palace Theatre (which of course served as the filming location for Randall and Hopkirk's That's How Murder Snowballs). Peter also made his television debut during this 1950s. Peter's early television roles were in series such as Robert Montgomery Presents in 1957 (Montgomery was the father of Elizabeth Montgomery, later famous for her role in the long-running US comedy Bewitched), The Larkins in 1958 and ATV's The Man Who Finally Died in 1959. 

After his debut, Peter appeared in many notable series which included Z Cars, Ghost Squad, The Avengers, Danger Man and Dixon of Dock Green. He also featured in a recurring role as a bank manager in the BBC television series Bergerac, and played General Franco in Sir Alan Parker's film adaptation of Evita, a policeman in the John Boorman movie Hope and Glory (1987), and the P&O manager in the 1984 David Lean movie A Passage to India. One of his last screen appearances came in 1999 in the popular detective series The Bill.

In his home life, Peter was married to the stage actress and manager Erica Brace from 1959 until his death in 2019. The couple had two children, Simon Hughes (1959- ), who played cricket for Middlesex and Durham and is now a cricket journalist, and Bettany Hughes (1967- ), who is a well-known historian and writer. Peter was a keen cricketer and coached for many years at Ealing Cricket Club. He passed away at the grand old age of 96 in a West London hospital in 2019.

Harry Hutchinson

Character & Episode: Second Ghost in The Trouble with Women
Born: 15/09/1892, Dublin, Ireland (as Henry Edward Hutchinson)
Died: 07/03/1980, Milan, Italy

Harry Hutchinson was a long-serving actor who initially started out in the theatre in 1911. He would not make his feature film debut until deep into adulthood, with his early roles in the medium being small and uncredited. His earliest known credited appearance came in 1932, by which time he had turned 40, in The Silver Greyhound, made at the Teddington studios of Warner Brothers. His television career kicked off five years later in 1937, when television itself was less than a year old, in a BBC television play, The Coiner. He went on to appear regularly in BBC Television drama until the Television Service was interrupted in 1939 by the outbreak of the Second World War.  When the service resumed in 1946 he found himself less in demand for television work and instead concentrated on theatre, radio and film work, which included an uncredited role in the noir classic Odd Man Out (1947) starring James Mason and directed by Carol Reed.

Over the course of his career, Hutchinson would appear in more than one hundred film and television roles, albeit mainly as elderly gentlemen in minor roles. He returned to regular television roles in the mid-Fifties, most notably featuring in Bootsie and Snudge, ITV Play of the Week, The Avengers and Armchair Theatre. His final credited television appearance came in 1973 when he played a butler in an episode of The Protectors, the ITC action series which starred Robert Vaughn and was produced by Gerry Anderson and Reg Hill.

In his personal life, Harry married the stage actress May Fitzgerald (real name Mary Theresa Fitzgerald) in 1924 and it is thought that the couple had two children.