British Actors Archives - Page 100 of 138

John Merivale

Jack Merivale was a tall, dark and very handsome actor who featured in many films of the 1940’s and 50’s. He was born in 1917 in Toronto, Canada. He made his debut in a small role in the classic James Whale film “The Invisible Man” in 1933. He went on to feature in “A Night to Remember”, “The Battle of the River Plate” and “Arabesque” in 1966. His first wife was the actress Jan Sterling. He was a longtime partner of Vivien Leigh until her death in 1967 and he was married to Dinah Sheridan at the time of his death in 1990.

IMDB entry:

John Merivale was born on December 1, 1917 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as John Herman Merivale. He was an actor, known for Arabesque (1966), A Night to Remember(1958) and Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959). He was married to Dinah Sheridan andJan Sterling. He died on February 6, 1990 in London, England.

In 1970, he was given ten years to live because of a previously undiagnosed hereditary kidney condition. He fell into a relationship with long-time friend actress Dinah Sheridan, who learned how to administer kidney dialysis at home. They married in 1986 and John died four years later, having stretched his life from ten to twenty years.

Became the lover and longtime companion of actress Vivien Leigh following her divorce from Laurence Olivier in 1960. He also became her dedicated caretaker in her final years as manic depression and prolonged illnesses grew severe. He was by her side when she died of tuberculosis in 1967.

Stepbrother of Sally Pearson.

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Lee Ingleby was born in Burnley in 1976. He played Stan Shunpike in “Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban”. He is well known for his portrayal of Detective John Bachus in the BBC series “George Gently”.

Anne Reid was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1935. She achived national fame in the UK for her performance as Val wife to Ken Barlow in “CoronationStreet” who was electrocuted by her hairdryer. Her film debut was in 1958 in “Passport to Shame”. She has had a steady career as a character actress but in the past ten years she has become very prolific in major roles both on television and in film e.g the film “The Mother” with Daniel Craig in 2003.

“MailOnline” article:

Anne Reid was the envy of older women everywhere when she played Daniel Craig’s lover in The Mother. She also starred in Coronation Street, and more recently as Mrs Thackeray the cook in Upstairs Downstairs. Now 75 and an MBE, she has one son and lives in central London.

I was born in Newcastle in May 1935, but my family moved to Redcar when the war started and this is me, aged eight, at White House School.

My nursery school was called John Emmerson Batty – wonderful name, wasn’t it? Then came White House primary, where my lasting memory was performing, as Juliet, the last act of Romeo And Juliet with a girl called June Laverick, who went on to become a well-known actress.

All my family were journalists – and indeed, so was my late husband, Peter Eckersley. My grandfather wrote a column in the Bolton Echo; my uncle was on the Manchester Evening News. My father, Colin, was a special correspondent in the Middle East for the Daily Telegraph and my three brothers followed the tradition.

When I was 11 my life changed completely. My mother flew out to join my father abroad and I was sent away to boarding school – to Penrhos College in North Wales.

I don’t remember being unduly worried at all. I must have been quite a strong character, but it must have been horrendously hard for my mother to leave me behind.

She left before term began so couldn’t even accompany me to school. My tin trunk and I were put on a train by one of my brothers and off I chugged towards the unknown.

Happily I adored Penrhos, and the odd thing was that we had a brother-school nearby called Rydal, where William Roache went – something I found out only when I joined the cast of Coronation Street.

I was so happy at school and I made it my home as I no longer had a family home in England. I saw my parents only once a year during the summer.

I either flew to the Middle East or spent time with them in London. When that happened they lived at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square.

Strangely enough, the flat I live in now is not far from the hotel. I was very average at school. I passed my exams, but I don’t think I shone. The school offered elocution lessons with a Miss Monica Beardsworth, and my father had me enrolled to iron out my North East accent. That’s how I discovered acting.

I never got into the school plays, but the elocution lessons opened another door because, as part of the training, I started doing bits of plays with my teacher.

I remember when I was about 12, learning the lines of a play and thinking, ‘I know how to make this interesting. I know how to act. I can do this better than other people.’ You do know when an inner talent gives you that ease. It’s not a remarkable thing – just a knack that has given me a very nice life.

In the end Miss Beardsworth wrote to my parents saying, ‘I think Anne is talented and she should take up acting. I’d like to get the forms and send her to RADA.’

My grandmother had been on the stage in variety choruses, so my father agreed with the idea at once. And that’s how it all happened. Not everyone at the school agreed with the diagnosis.

My French teacher, Miss Clark, was astonished when I told her, aged 12, that I was going to be an actress.

She said, ‘Oh no. You’ll never make an actress. You’re not the type.’ I don’t think she was being intentionally unkind, but these things stick in your mind, don’t they? She obviously thought I wasn’t flamboyant enough.

People, at that time, imagined that an actress should be vivid and flamboyant, but I don’t believe acting is about that. It’s about being a blank canvas and being able to play lots of different characters.

I always wanted that diversity, and the great thing is that, since I did The Mother, my life has changed dramatically. I’ve had such variety, from Ladies Of Letters to playing Barbara Cartland in the story of her life.

It was a wrench to leave Penrhos at 16. I loved it so much. I was in the school choir and we always had choir picnics in the mountains of Snowdonia.

For a long time after I left, I used to dream I was back at school. I was very content there and it was traumatic to be thrust out into the world. Though I had travelled a lot, I was still very naive – a schoolgirl in high heels and earrings.

I did enjoy RADA, but I wish I’d been more worldly-wise. I didn’t make the most of it and I didn’t even know what an agent was. I didn’t know anything about the business and hadn’t even been to the theatre much. It took me a long time to grow up.

I don’t know if I have quite managed it, even now. I always played the character parts at drama school – the sort of roles I play now, but of course that doesn’t really equip you to find jobs when you come out. I didn’t know how to play a juvenile lead.

I was a stage manager for a long time and worked in repertory theatre, but gradually things began to happen. My first TV job was doing sketches with Benny Hill.

My parents came back to England in 1960, just before I went into Coronation Street playing Valerie Tatlock.

My father enjoyed that enormously – he loved the fact that I was famous. It was only after he died that I left the Street. Then I married, became pregnant and gave up acting for about 12 years, and started again in 1986. Since then everything has turned out wonderfully well.

Yvonne Swann Marchlands starts on Thursday, ITV1 at 9pm.

The above “Mail Online” article can be accessed online here.

Barbara Everest was born in Southfields, London in 1890. She made her film debut in the silent movie “The Man Without A Soul” in 1916. In 1943 she continued her career in Hollywood where she made “Mission to Moscow”, “Gaslight” with Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury and “The Valley of Decision”. By 1947 she was back in Britain and she continued acting until 1965 when she made her final film “Rotten to the Core”. She died in 1968.

TCM Overview:

Barbara Everest was an actress who had a successful Hollywood career. In her early acting career, Everest appeared in such films as “Love in Exile” (1936), “Jump For Glory” (1937) and the drama “Commandos Strike at Dawn” (1942) with Paul Muni. She also appeared in the Anthony Collins drama “Forever and a Day” (1943) and “Mission to Moscow” (1943) with Walter Huston. She continued to work steadily in film throughout the forties, appearing in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1943) with Nelson Eddy, the Charles Boyer adaptation “Gaslight” (1944) and the Orson Welles dramatic adaptation “Jane Eyre” (1944). She also appeared in the thriller “The Uninvited” (1944) with Ray Milland and the drama “The Valley of Decision” (1945) with Greer Garson. Film continued to be her passion as she played roles in the dramatic adaptation “Frieda” (1947) with David Farrar, “The Safecracker” (1958) with Ray Milland and “El Cid” (1961). She also appeared in the Macdonald Carey adaptation “These Are the D*mned” (1962). Everest more recently acted in “Rotten to the Core” (1965). Everest passed away in February 1968 at the age of 78.

The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.

Donald Sinden was born in 1923 in Plymouth, Devon. He made his first stage appearance in Brighton in 1941. He began his film career in “Portrait from Life” in 1948. His other films include “Mogambo” opposite Grace Kelly 1953, “The Cruel Sea”, “Mad Aboiut Men” with Glynis Johns and in 1959, “The Captain#s Table” with Peggy Cummins. He was still acting in his med-eighties on television in “Judge John Deed”. “Midsomer Murders” and “Marple”. He died in 2014.

IMDB entry:

The son of a country chemist, the British actor Donald Sinden intended to pursue a career in architecture but was spotted in an amateur theatrical production and asked to join a company that entertained the troops during World War II (Sinden was rejected for naval service because of asthma). Following a brief training at drama school, he established himself in theater, particularly as a Shakespearean actor. Having made his film debut in The Cruel Sea (1953), Sinden became a leading man in British films during the 1950s and then moved onto character roles later in his career. While his film appearances became less frequent, he worked steadily in theater (with the Royal Shakespeare Company, primarily) and in television, notably as the unperturbable butler in “Two’s Company” (1975) and as a miserable in-law in “Never the Twain” (1981).

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Lyn Hammond

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

His “Guardian” obituary:

“To hear him in full spate is not unlike being shot between the eyes by the world’s largest plum,” said the journalist John Preston of Donald Sinden, who has died aged 90. The remark was applicable to the actor’s vocal delivery both on stage and off. No review was ever penned without “fruity” appearing somewhere near “voice” in the text. Judi Dench, who played a notable Beatrice to his Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing in 1976, said he had “a Christmas pudding of a voice, soaked in brandy”; while the director Peter Hall, who played a very big part in his career, likened it to a bassoon that could be terribly tragic, terribly moving – and extremely funny. Physically, too, Sinden was both imposing and endlessly, sometimes outrageously, inventive. In all, Michael Billington averred, he was a critic’s dream, because he always gave you so much to write about.

He became nationally renowned as a Rank contract artist in the 1950s, appearing in notable films such as The Cruel Sea (1953) with Jack Hawkins, Mogambo (1953), directed by John Ford, with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, and Doctor in the House (1954) and Doctor at Large (1957), with Dirk Bogarde and James Robertson Justice, and from the 1960s in TV sitcoms. Nonetheless, Sinden was unashamedly theatrical. He rarely went on stage without an item of historical significance: a pair of Henry Irving’s boots, Fred Terry’s eye-glass or John Martin Harvey‘s hat. He lived and breathed the traditions of his trade, and bent the technique he sought out from his elders – he learned about listening and timing, for instance, from Baliol Holloway – to the service of both tragic and comic gods.

He was a notable Shakespearean at Stratford-upon-Avon either side of his early film stint, playing a booming, militaristic King Lear (“Let me not stay a jot for dinner … dinner, ho, dinner!” has never sounded so heartfelt) in the same season as Benedick and, soon after, less successfully, a blacked-up Othello. He characteristically said that Lear became nice and easy after three acts, whereas Othello started quietly and just got harder and harder. Like one of his heroes, David Garrick, he believed that tragedy was easier than comedy: “The expertise you need for farce,” he said, “is far greater than for Shakespeare, though with him there has to be greater intellectual awareness.”

Sinden on the back foot, exposed and flummoxed in comedy, was one of the sights of the age; his great jowls would sag in a mask of stricken gravity, his eyes fixed wide open, and he would rake the stalls with baleful stares, reducing his audience to a state of gleeful hysteria.

The second of three children, he was born in Plymouth, the son of Alfred, a chemist, and Mabel (nee Fuller), and grew up in Ditchling, East Sussex. He suffered from asthma from an early age and attended a series of private schools before going to Hassocks primary. He failed the 11-plus, went on to Burgess Hill secondary and, at the age of 15, was apprenticed in carpentry and attended evening classes in draughting, with aspirations to become an architect and surveyor.His workplace was in nearby Brighton, where he fell into amateur dramatics and was given a chance by the director of the Theatre Royal, Charles F Smith, who invited him to join his Mobile Entertainments Southern Area company, with his first professional appearance coming in 1942. His asthma kept him out of wartime action, and he continued with MESA and in joinery. Smith, who had seen Irving act, introduced him to the leaders of his new profession – John Martin Harvey, Irene Vanbrugh, Marie Tempest – and the critic James Agate.

In the 1944 volume of his diaries published as The Selective Ego, Agate records how he muttered, “Stick to your fretwork, young man,” before asking “Don Sinden” to recite Wolsey’s farewell from Henry VIII and finding evidence of promise: “Enough height, an attractive head, something of the look of young [Henry] Ainley, a good resonant voice, vowels not common, manner modest yet firm.” Later that year, after four years of modern comedies and one-night stands for the forces, Sinden embarked on two terms of training at the Webber Douglas School, before making his regional debut at the Leicester Rep, moving on to the Stratford-upon-Avon Memorial theatre in 1946 for two seasons; his roles included Dumaine in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and Paris (also understudying Romeo) in Peter Brook’s Romeo and Juliet.

His contract with Rank followed seasons at the Old Vic in both London and Bristol. By 1960 Sinden was anxious to resume his place on the stage. He was an ideal Captain Hook (doubled with Mr Darling) in Peter Pan opposite Julia Lockwood at the old Scala, but Hall, he said, “rescued” him at the RSC, where he played Mr Price in Henry Livings’s surreal comedy Eh? and the Duke of York in the legendary Wars of the Roses history play cycle at Stratford and the Aldwych in London for two years, and shown on BBC television in 1965.

In the latter, Peggy Ashcroft as the “she-wolf” Queen Margaret wiped his face with a rag soaked in the blood of his murdered son, and their brutish stand-off, ending in York’s torture and death, was a highlight of the cycle. Still he maintained a wider public profile in the popular television comedy series Our Man at St Mark’s (1964-66), where he succeeded Leslie Phillips as a country vicar kept in check by Joan Hickson’s sarcastically overbearing housekeeper.

He consolidated his RSC status, and was made an associate of the company, with his Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh’s The Relapse, a feast of frippery and (“Stap me vitals”) asides. Sinden based his makeup on that of Danny La Rue, but went even further with the rouge, the ribbons, the giant poodle wig and the flutter of silk kerchiefs.

He was in full sail, and added three more great performances in the 1969-70 season: a comically puritanical, granite-featured Malvolio (his model was the Graham Sutherland portrait of Somerset Maugham) opposite Dench’s exquisite Viola in Twelfth Night; a four-square Henry VIII based on Holbein; and another knockout fop, Sir William Harcourt Courtly, in Boucicault’s London Assurance, directed by Ronald Eyre.

In between, he somehow threaded long West End runs in two hit farces: Terence Frisby’s There’s a Girl in My Soup (1966), in which he executed a celebrated piece of “business”, breaking two eggs (he played a celebrity chef) while seducing Jill Melford’s “dolly bird”; and Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s Not Now, Darling (1968), weaving a web of deceit and adultery in a fantastic double act with another great farceur, Bernard Cribbins.

Still refusing to erect barriers between the subsidised and commercial stages – at a time when others were busy doing so – he played in Terence Rattigan’s In Praise of Love (originally After Lydia) opposite Joan Greenwood at the Duchess theatre in 1973 and in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (“The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone”) at Chichester in 1975.

His last hurrah at the RSC was that wonderful Much Ado (directed, as was their Twelfth Night, by John Barton), he and Dench dicing with love and the onset of middle age in the last-chance saloon of a colonial Indian sunset. Sinden’s technique of embracing the audience in his confidence while building a complex character was breathtaking. His Benedick, the best I have seen, was hilarious and heart-breaking, vain, masculine, silly and romantically efflorescent.

He segued into his second big television series, Two’s Company (1975-79), playing a Jeevesian butler to Elaine Stritch‘s acerbic, best-selling American author who had moved to London. Bill McIlwraith’s scripts capitalised on both actors’ gifts for laconic comedy, rife with misunderstanding and affronted dignity; the result was high-calibre warfare between two proud thoroughbreds.

Another compelling sitcom partnership, full of barely concealed or absolutely open outrage, came with Windsor Davies in Never the Twain (1981-91). The rivalry between the two antique dealers was in no way assuaged by the love and marriage of their respective offspring.

His West End appearances in the 80s included an overage matinee idol in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, an overage Uncle Vanya at the Haymarket (one role, perhaps, that proved beyond his considerable range) and Sir Peter Teazle in A School for Scandal. But he struck gold twice in this decade: first, as Dick Willey MP, a lascivious Home Office minister, in Ray Cooney’s Two Into One (1984) at the Shaftesbury, raking the house with his trademark battery of stricken oiellades when caught with his trousers, as it were, down; then as Sir Percy Blakeney in Nicholas Hytner’s sumptuous 1985 revival of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which transferred from Chichester to the Haymarket.

These monstrous star performances, the one a fond farewell to the old Aldwych farce traditions (aided and abetted by the brilliant Michael Williams, the RSC Fool to his Lear), the other an extravagant adieu to the Victorian stage, still revealed Sinden at the peak of his powers.

In the 90s, he played an outdated view of Oscar Wilde as a martyred music-hall act in Diversions and Delights, a retread of Dick Willey in Cooney’s less delirious sequel Out of Order, and a somewhat tackily lecherous old Duke of Altair (one of Laurence Olivier’s most dashing, moonstruck roles) in Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed at Chichester.

He fared better with Hall, yet again, as a definitive, baffled Mr Hardcastle, the country squire who is mistaken for an innkeeper in She Stoops to Conquer (“I no longer know me own house!”) and as a growling, highly political Polonius to Stephen Dillane’s taciturn Hamlet, the inaugural production at the newly named Gielgud theatre (formerly the Globe). His last West End appearance came in Ronald Harwood’s Quartet at the Albery (now the Noël Coward) in 1999, playing an operatic has-been in an old folk’s home, stalking the stage with Ralph Richardson’s walking stick.

In later years, he toured abroad, indefatigably and heroically, in both the RSC’s The Hollow Crown, John Barton’s entertainment about English monarchs, and his own compilation of poetry and reminiscences. He served on many committees, notably the Arts Council and the Theatre Museum, and was a highly visible and participatory member of the Garrick Club. His television work continued, notably as the father of the ex-wife of Judge John Deed (2001-07): of his own full-of-himself character he said, “He cannot understand why the series is not called Judge Joseph Channing.”

Sinden was made CBE in 1979, but his “old actor laddie” public persona, exuding an air of fulsome ingratiation, made him a sitting target for Spitting Image, the television satire show, where his florid, fawning puppet yearned for further recognition. The knighthood duly arrived in 1997.

His appetite for absorbing, and preferably relating, theatrical anecdotes was unquenchable, and he produced two delightful volumes of autobiography, A Touch of the Memoirs (1982) – which contains a lovely account of a Sussex childhood – and Laughter in the Second Act (1985), an invaluable, idiosyncratic document in the history of the RSC and the West End. He was a great lover of architecture, the countryside and its churches, producing The English Country Church (1988) alongside two other collections, The Everyman Book of Theatrical Anecdotes (1987) and The Last Word (1994), featuring put-downs, final utterances and epitaphs.

Sinden married the actor Diana Mahony in 1948 and they were inseparable until her death in 2004. Their first son, the actor Jeremy, died in 1996. He is survived by their second son, Marc, also an actor, as well as a director and producer, and by his brother Leon, another actor.

• Donald Alfred Sinden, actor, born 9 October 1923; died 11 September 2014

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be access online here.

John Nettles. IMDB.

John Nettles is well known for two long-running television series in the UK, “Bergerac” which ran from 1981 until 1991 and concerned the live of Detective Jim Bergerac on the island of Jersey and “Midsome Murders” which he starred in from 1995 until 2011. He was born in St Austell, Cornwall and he studied at the University of Southampton. His films include “All Men Are Mortal” in 1995.

IMDB entry:

John Nettles has been a familiar face on British and International television screens for over thirty years.

From his early beginnings in the UK hit comedy The Liver Birds (1969), he became a household name overnight playing the Jersey detective “Jim Bergerac”. The series,Bergerac (1981), was a huge hit in Britain and was exported to many countries across the world including France, Spain and Greece, gaining him thousands of fans.

His new found fame as Bergerac gave him almost film-star-like fame and fortune, not to mention thousands of female admirers! Despite Bergerac (1981) being mothballed in the early 1990s, the series still has a considerable fan base and lingering popularity abroad, especially in Jersey, where images of John Nettles are still used for advertising tourist attractions and other services on the island. Nettles’ polished Shakesperean performances have won him critical acclaim and many consider him to rival fellow British stalwarts of theatre such as Patrick Stewart and SirIan McKellen.

English actor John Nettles who plays the character of Jim Bergerac in the television drama series ‘Bergerac’, pictured on location during filming in the United Kingdom on 25th March 1981. (Photo by Larry Ellis Collection/Getty Images)

Oddly enough, however, he has never really ventured onto the big screen and has seemed happy to stick to stage and television throughout his successful career. Most recently he has enjoying continued success playing the straightforward DCI Tom Barnaby in ITV’s _”Midsomer Murders” (1997). He is on record as wanting to create a TV detective without any of the usual tics, and consequently Tom Barnaby is a happy family man, who just happens to live in the most murderous part of an otherwise stereotypically idyllic English countryside.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: A J Lewis

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Gene Anderson

Gene Anderson was an English actress who had a career in television, film, and theatre from the early 1950s up until her death in 1965 at the age of 34. She was the first wife of actor Edward Judd and is best known for her performances in the films The Long Haul (1957) and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961). Born in London, Anderson was trained as an actress at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (then known as the Central School of Speech and Drama). She made her film debut in the small role of June Maple in Guy Hamilton’s 1953 drama film The Intruder. Her first larger screen role came later that year in the supporting role of Renee Wexford in the crime film Flannelfoot. Her first leading part in a film was as Pamela in 1954’s Tale of Three Women. She also performed in the theatre, creating the role of Marie Charlet in the world premiere of Pierre La Mure’s Monsieur Toulouse at the Connaught Theatre in a production directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. In the West End, she portrayed the central role of the Nurse in the UK premiere of Edward Albee’s The Death of Bessie Smith. She also appeared on British television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including as a main cast member of the 1950s British television dramas The Crime of the Century and A Mask for Alexis. She was also a frequent guest actress on British television series in the 1950s and 1960s. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage while rehearsing for a television episode appearance in London on May 5, 1965 at the age of 34

John Duttine. IMDB.

John Duttine was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire in 1949. He came to prominence on television in 1977 in the drama “Spend, Spend, Spend” about pools winner Viv Nicholson. In 1980 he starred in the hughly popular television series “To Serve Them All the Days”. He went on to star in “Who Dares Wins” with Richard Widmark and Lewis Collins. He has recently starred in “Heartbeat”. He is married to the wonderful actress Mel Martin.

IMDB entry:

Like the character he played in To Serve Them All My Days (1980), John Duttine hails from a mining town, but in Yorkshire rather than Wales. He, too, attended state schools rather than upper-class public (the equivalent of American private) schools. When he realized in his teens that “acting was the only thing I did well,” he switched to drama, training at the Drama Centre in London. His first job after drama school was playing three characters in “Hamlet” for the Citizens Theatre Company in Glasgow, Scotland. On joining the Glasgow Repertory Company, he did most of the familiar repertory stints including Antony in “Antony and Cleopatra,” Danton in “Danton’s Death,” and Danforth in “The Crucible.”

By the mid-1970s, he had shifted mainly to television and film. Then in 1979-80 came the opportunity to play the hero of To Serve Them All My Days (1980), arguably one of the more demanding roles in the mini-series library. His main fear about playing David Powlett-Jones was the Welsh accent: “I was rather worried that I wouldn’t hit the right note. I would be angry as hell if I heard a Yorkshire accent that was wrong.” Clearly, John got the accent and just about everything else about this performance exactly right. As the New York Times noted upon the series’ first American broadcast in 1982, “Mr. Duttine is, even in this talented company, exceptional.”

Following that triumph, for which he won the TV Times magazine’s Best Actor award, John appeared in numerous programs and series for British television throughout the 1980s, drawing particular acclaim for _Day of the Triffids, The (1981) (TV)_, a sci-fi mini-series that has become a cult sci-fi favorite, and The Outsider (1983), a 6-part series about a newspaper editor set in John’s native Yorkshire. He also returned to the stage occasionally, and in 1989 was reunited with Charles Kay, his nemesis (Alcock) of To Serve Them All My Days (1980), for the original cast of “The Woman in Black.”

In the early 1990s, John’s career and life appeared to hit a rough patch. His relationship with long-time girlfriend Carolyn Hutchinson broke up (they had a son, Oscar, in 1981) and work temporarily dried up. By 1994, things had returned to a better track. John began a relationship with Mel Martin, with whom he had co-starred in the TV movie Ruth Rendell Mysteries: Talking to Strange Men (1992), and returned to series TV with the comedic _Ain’t Misbehavin (1994)_. In 1997, he and Mel bought an 18th century farmhouse on eight acres in Cornwall, England.

Today John continues to appear regularly in guest-starring roles on British television, as well as on stage. During 2003, he toured in the well-received “Art” with co-stars Les Dennis and Christopher Cazenove. John also does voice-over work for commercials and documentaries, as well as radio plays for the BBC, putting his versatile voice to very effective use.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Elizabeth

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Michael Crawford was born in 1942 in Salisbury, England. He is fondly remembered for his role of Frank Spencer in “Some Mothers Do Have Them” which began its run on British television in 1973. Already Crawford had been on film, “”The War Lover” in 1963 with Steve McQueen and Shirley Anne Field and in Hollywood, “Hello Dolly” with Barbra Streisand in 1969. He played the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” to enormous acclaim.

TCM Overview:

An enormously gifted singer-actor, Michael Crawford became a child star of radio, stage and screen thanks to his soprano voice and innate acting talent. Maturing into a gifted adult performer, he charmed in such films as “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966) and “Hello, Dolly!” (1969). Crawford became a sitcom star and household name as the accident-prone Frank Spencer on “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” (BBC1, 1973-78), but found even more success as a musical theater actor, winning an Olivier Award in “Barnum” and becoming a worldwide icon as the titular star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera.” An unprecedented global phenomenon, “Phantom” defined an era, earning Crawford another Olivier Award, a Tony and the status of Officer of the British Empire. Buoyed by all the adulation, Crawford launched a Grammy-nominated solo recording career, headlined the Las Vegas musical spectacular “EFX,” and filmed his own Emmy-nominated special, “Michael Crawford in Concert” (PBS, 1998). A born performer who only became more likable and charismatic with age, Michael Crawford continued to build upon his status as a beloved international icon and as one of the most respected English entertainers of all time.

Born Jan. 19, 1942 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, Michael Patrick Dumbell-Smith experienced a childhood of extreme highs and lows against the backdrop of wartime England. After his mother died young, he left his abusive stepfather and dedicated himself to the theater, going from performing in school plays to professional productions, due in part to his beautiful soprano singing voice. Adopting the stage name of Michael Crawford, he built an impressive career as a child star on the stage, television and radio before essaying his first teenage lead in the comedy “Two Left Feet” (1963), as an awkward young man who attempts to seduce a waitress. After an impressive stint on the satiric sketch show “Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life” (BBC1, 1964-65), he followed with a series of charming performances as clumsy, callow young men learning about love in the Richard Lester comedies “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965) and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966), winning the Variety Club of Great Britain’s award for Most Promising Newcomer.

As the high-spirited Cornelius Hackl, he took lessons in love from matchmaker Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) in the Oscar-winning musical “Hello, Dolly!” (1969) and reteamed with director Richard Lester to star as an inept British Army officer who inadvertently kills off all of his men, including John Lennon, in “How I Won the War” (1967). That same year, he made his Broadway debut in “Black Comedy” opposite Lynn Redgrave and Geraldine Page and he went on to make a name for himself on the London stage as well in the sex farce “No Sex Please, We’re British” (1971) and the short-lived musicals “Billy” and “Flowers for Algernon.” After playing the White Rabbit in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1972), the actor achieved U.K. pop culture immortality as the hilariously unlucky, lovable loser Frank Spencer on “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” (BBC1, 1973-78), which proved not just a popular series, but an enduring U.K. cultural institution. For his wonderful work on the series, Crawford earned two BAFTA TV Award nominations, as well as the respect of cast and crew for doing his own stunts and pratfalls on the physical comedy-heavy series.

Back onstage, Crawford’s exuberant, Olivier Award-winning performance in the boisterous Cy Coleman musical “Barnum” helped him shed the trappings of his sitcom superstardom, transforming the actor into a popular musical theater star. Working tirelessly to train himself in circus arts like tightrope walking and juggling, Crawford so completely embodied the famed showman P.T. Barnum that he became synonymous with the show’s monstrous success and was even tapped by British ice dancing legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean to help them perfect a routine to music from the show. Still very much associated with his charming sitcom character, however, Crawford completed the transition to serious actor and saw his star flash supernova with his sensitive, captivating portrayal of the tormented, masked antihero of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “The Phantom of the Opera.” Although he was not Webber’s first choice for the role, Crawford’s opera-trained voice won the producer over when he and star Sarah Brightman overheard the actor in a music lesson, and it soon became obvious that this part of a lifetime was destined for Crawford.

Now a household name, the enormously influential “Phantom” proved to be a smash in both the West End and on Broadway, with its soundtrack becoming a worldwide sensation and “Phantom Mania” sweeping the media. Fans fell deeply in love with the swooningly romantic story of the titular disfigured musical genius (Crawford) who went to murderous lengths to win the heart of the angelic Christine (Brightman), and the lush, dramatic production captured the imagination of millions. Gifted with dreamy numbers that showcased his soaring voice, Crawford was the heart of Phantom mania for millions, becoming a global sex symbol and icon. For giving unforgettable life to the “Phantom,” Crawford won a slew of awards from both sides of the pond, including an Olivier, a Tony, a New York Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Variety Club of Great Britain’s Personality of the Year. So popular and acclaimed was Crawford’s performance that Queen Elizabeth II named him an Officer of the British Empire, and he launched a successful solo recording career, including 1991’s multiplatinum Michael Crawford Performs Andrew Lloyd Webber and 1993’s A Touch of Music in the Night, which included a Grammy-nominated duet with Barbra Streisand.

He went on to star in the enormously ambitious, special effects-laden musical spectacular “EFX” in Las Vegas, which cast Crawford in five starring roles: the EFX Master, Merlin the wizard, famed showman P.T. Barnum, magician Harry Houdini and science fiction author H.G. Wells. The show proved so demanding, however, that Crawford, who still insisted on doing his own stunts, had to leave early in the run due to injuries sustained while performing. When he left the intense “EFX,” the actor went on to star in his own Emmy-nominated special, “Michael Crawford in Concert” (PBS, 1998) and to pen his autobiography, 1999’s Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied with String. Continuing his lucrative recording and touring careers, Crawford scored further stage success in the musicals “Dance of the Vampires” and Webber’s “The Woman in White,” earning an Olivier Award nomination for his work. Crawford and Webber reteamed yet again for another hit when the actor played the titular role in Webber’s 2011-12 production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

By Jonathan Riggs

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.