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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.
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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.
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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 Peter
Regan, an English actor who found fame in the Australian soap
opera The Box (1974-76), until her death from a brain tumour in 2001.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Image © ITV Studios, 1969 |
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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 busy 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.
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Image © ITV Studios, 1969 |
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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.
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Section compiled by Darren Senior
Additional research and presentation by Denis Kirsanov and Alan Hayes
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