Larry Taylor

Character & Episode: Man in Phone Booth in A Sentimental Journey
Born: 13/07/1918, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England (as Laurence Taylor)
Died: 06/08/2003, Johannesburg, South Africa

Larry Taylor was a busy stuntman and character actor, instantly recognisable due to his swarthy, gap-toothed appearance. He often played heavies, but was also cast in a variety of foreign roles. As an actor, Larry featured in significantly more than a hundred television and film productions during his career. He spent many years in the army, serving in India and Palestine before the Second World War. After demobilisation, he secured a job in the film industry as a stuntman - in addition to performing stunts, he also taught other performers how to do their own - and early work in this field included Stewart Granger's famous fight in the film Waterloo Road (1945). He toured in variety in second half of 1940s, and appeared in legitimate theatre from the early 1950s. His screen debut as an actor came in 1946 in an uncredited role as a sergeant in the film Captive Heart. Regular screen work did not materialise until 1952 when he began to gain bit-part roles mainly in film which included Lady in the Fog (1952), Sea Devils (1953) and Breakaway (1956). In 1956 Larry played Perdicus in the historical film Alexander The Great which starred Richard Burton and Frederic March. By the late Fifties, he began to break into television, appearing in programmes that included Sword of Freedom (1957) and Sheep's Clothing (1957). Meanwhile, he continued to gain film roles in productions such as Robbery Under Arms (1957), The Gun Runners (1958) and First Man Into Space (1959).

Larry's television work during the Sixties included contributions to programmes such as Sir Francis Drake (1961), Danger Man (1965), The Prisoner (1967), Man in a Suitcase (1968), The Avengers (1968) and Department S (1969). He could also be spotted regularly between 1963 until 1969 in the The Saint, a popular television series in which he appeared on many occasions. Sixties film work included the historical war drama Zulu (1964), two Carry On appearances (in Carry On Follow That Camel (1967) and Carry On Up the Khyber (1968)) and the Morecambe and Wise comedy The Magnificent Two (1967). In the early 1970s he featured in the films The Wife Swappers and The Last Valley. He continued to appear in television series, which included UFO (Mindbender, 1971), Jason King (As Easy as ABC, 1971) and The Adventurer (Love Always, Magda, 1972).

In 1974, Larry and his wife, Ann, a leading film makeup artist, moved to South Africa where he continued his career. Among other engagements, he played Captain Birdseye in a series of South African commercials for Bird's Eye Fish Fingers (the British version was played by John Hewer from 1967 to 1998). He made his final credited screen appearance in 1995, playing Sheriff Hughes in the horror film The Mangler.

In their personal life, Larry and Ann had son, Laurie (1945-), who, as Rocky Taylor, became a well-known stuntman. Rocky was regularly employed on Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Larry Taylor died of a heart attack in South Africa at the age of eighty-four in 2003.

Tony Thawnton

Character & Episode: Fernandez in That's How Murder Snowballs
Born: 1920, London, England (birth surname: Wagstaff)

Like several actors who appeared in That's How Murder Snowballs, Tony Thawnton was generally a minor supporting actor. His parents had a clerical job planned for him but he ran away from home at 16 seeking a career on the stage. He would later credit the greatest thrill of his career as having come when he was stage director in a theatre production of Peter Pan, the cast of which included Lady Forbes Robertson and Sir Seymour Hicks. In 1940 he was called up by the Armed Forces and served with the Royal Armoured Corps. He gained the rank of Captain in the 3rd King's Own Hussars. From the mid-1940s he resumed his career in theatre. In 1946, he decided to officially change his real surname Wagstaff to Thawnton, which he used as his stage name. He made his screen debut in the first half of the 1950s and during this decade he played regular parts in The Buccaneers, which featured a young Robert Shaw in the lead role, and The Adventures of Robin Hood, which starred Richard Greene.

Tony remained busy until the first half of the 1970s on many film and television projects, but again his roles were not significant. He did appear in several well-known shows in the Sixties and early Seventies and these included The Plane Makers (1963), Zero One (1965), Danger Man (1965), The Avengers (1968), and The Baron (1966), Department S (1969) and Jason King (1972) for ITC. He also made a notable supporting appearance in the feature film The Wrong Box (1966), which starred Michael Caine, Tony Hancock, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. His last credited screen appearance was in the detective series Special Branch in 1973.

In his personal life, Tony was initially married to actress Gabrielle Blunt (1919-2014). The marriage produced two children, Paul (born in 1946) and Nickolas (born in 1947) but ended in divorce in 1950. His second marriage was to a dancer, Lisa Veronova. They had daughter, Corinna (born in 1952). This marriage also ended in divorce. Tony's third wife was Joy Gale.

Hilary Tindall

Character & Episode: Cynthia Seaton in The Smile Behind the Veil
Born: 14/08/1938, Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died: 05/12/1992, Selbourne, Hampshire, England

Hilary Tindall was born and bred in Manchester. Growing up, she seriously considered becoming a dress designer but ultimately chose a career path in acting. She trained at RADA, graduating in 1958, and started in the business working on a single production at the Richmond Theatre. After this, she went to the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, and worked there for one year appearing in juvenile lead roles on stage and working also as an assistant stage manager for the company. Her big break came in William Douglas Home's comedy Aunt Edwina, which ran at The Fortune Theatre in London's West End. Soon afterwards, she worked at the Old Vic, and despite her eventual success on television, would later express a preference for the stage. She appeared for ITC in The Baron, The Champions and of course, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and went on to even greater mainstream success by starring in The Brothers, the highly popular BBC television drama series centred around a road haulage firm. Appearing as one of the major characters, Anne Hammond, Hilary stayed with the series for the first four runs and returned for three further episodes in the seventh series (coincidentally, Mike Pratt featured in ten episodes of Series 6). Her role in The Brothers brought her to international recognition, notably in Sweden, where the series was remade as The Ship Owner. She was offered a major part in this remake but turned the opportunity down.

Hilary also appeared in the high-rating ATV hospital soap opera Emergency Ward 10, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Tales of the Unexpected and the Channel 4 pilot episode Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future.

Hilary Tindall was regarded a fine actress with consummate camera technique. She had both vivacity, charm and a warm laugh, and liked to do impersonations at script readings, which had everyone laughing and endeared her to her colleagues. Her career was tragically cut short by bowel cancer, a disease she fought for six years before succumbing to it at just 54 in 1992. She was married to theatrical and literary agent Robin Lowe (1925-2002), with whom she had two children, Hilary and Julian. Robin was the son of John Loder (1898-1988), a British film star of the late silent and early sound era who enjoyed great success in German, British and American screen productions.

John A. Tinn

Character & Episode: Sung Lee Crackan in It's Supposed to be Thicker Than Water
Born: 10/06/1913, Bhamo, Burma (as John Ali Tinn)
Died: 1978, London, England

John A. Tinn was a minor supporting actor with little more than thirty film and television credits in Britain. Educated at the American Baptist Mission School in Upper Burma, John gained his first theatrical experience at Mandalay in 1933. Later, he worked in British Burma Films and for National Films Studios at Rangoon. In 1939, three weeks after the Second World War broke out, he joined the Merchant Navy, eventually bringing him to England, where at one time he worked as an engineer. His first stage work in the United Kingdom was with a touring American show called Double Event in 1945-46. Subsequently, John settled down in London and worked in films in small, uncredited roles. His film works during the 1950s included appearances in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951), The Planter's Wife (1952) and The Purple Plain (1955). On television of that era, John appeared in such series as The Vise, Lilli Palmer Theatre and McCreary Moves In. The latter of these series featured John in a regular role as a policeman. During the 1960s, his screen appearances on the screen were noticeably less frequent, but a decade later he again began to concentrate in this area, mainly on television. His last appearance was in 1979 in the BBC series The Other Side.

Beside his activity in acting, John was also a multi-instrumentalist and played Malayan background music for the whole BBC TV series More Than Robbery in 1958 (he also had role in one episode of series) and the ITV series Time Out for Peggy (1958-59). He also was able to speak six languages.

In his personal life, John was married to Kathleen Forster. He lived into his mid-60s and died in London in 1978.

Frederick Treves BEM

Character & Episode: Inspector in The Trouble with Women
Born: 29/03/1925, Cliftonville, Kent, England (as Frederick William Treves)
Died: 30/01/2012, Mitcham, London, England

Frederick Treves had a long and distinguished career in the acting profession in which he made more than two hundred television and film appearances. Born the son of a Margate doctor, he was educated at Selwyn House prep school in Broadstairs, Kent, and from there went to Nautical College Pangbourne at 13 years of age. Before he embarked on his acting career he served in the Merchant Navy from the age of 17 – his first voyage was aboard the freighter Waimarama, which had been converted for war use and he boarded at Birkenheard. The ship was part of the 'Pedestal' convoy to Malta, and was sunk on 13th August 1942 by German bombers. He saved a number of his crewmates including the only ship officers to survive the sinking. As a result, Frederick, still only 17, was awarded the British Empire Medal and the Lloyd's War Medal for his actions.

After the war Frederick went to RADA and, upon graduation in 1948, went into theatre. He made his screen debut in 1953, in Wheel of Fate. In 1956 he appeared in minor roles in ten episodes of the television series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. In 1960 he was the radio announcer in Carry On Constable, his only contribution to the famous film series. Most of his Sixties roles were for television and included A for Andromeda (1961), An Enemy of the State (1965), The Avengers (1967), The Baron (1967) and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969). The Seventies continued in a similar vein, with television guest appearances in The Liver Birds (1972), The Protectors (1972) and the following year he played Colonel Cranleigh-Osborne, a recurring character in the drama series The Regiment alongside Christopher Cazenove and Dennis Lill.

Frederick was also active on radio. His long association with radio also extended into writing scripts, one of which, Operation Pedestal for BBC Radio in 1974, drew on his wartime experiences in the Merchant Navy.

By the mid-Seventies, Frederick's profile on television had heightened with prominent roles in well-regarded series including The Naked Civil Servant (1975) with John Hurt, and The Sweeney (1976). In 1980 he featured as an alderman in the film The Elephant Man which starred John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. Frederick's great uncle was Sir Frederick Treves (1853-1923), the surgeon who became famous for discovering John Merrick ('The Elephant Man') and was played in the film by Anthony Hopkins. Appearances in the Eighties included a Doctor Who serial, Meglos, in which he played the colourful intergalactic kleptomaniac Brotadac, a role which saw him cast very much against type, and The Jewel In The Crown (1984), Inspector Morse (1987) and as Frank Harrington, a regular character in the drama series Game, Set and Match (1988). During the Nineties, Frederick appeared in such programmes as Lovejoy (1993), The Chief (1995) and Kavanagh QC (1997). His last screen appearance was in 2003 in an episode of Rosemary & Thyme.

In his personal life, Frederick married Jean Stott (1933-2018) in 1956 and they had two sons, Frederick (born in 1957) and Patrick (born in 1958), and a daughter, Jennet (born in 1962). Frederick and Jean's eldest son is also an actor, who works under the stage name Simon Treves and most famously played 'Stinker' Pinker in the ITV Jeeves and Wooster adaptations which starred Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.