FeaturesAppearing in small acting roles with many opera and ballet companies, Michael Earl enjoyed a long career until he was struck down by the MRSA superbug. After National Service, he won a place at RADA…
Douglas Mounce
A former accountant who became one of the country’s leading pantomime dames, Douglas Mounce played 27 seasons throughout his career, which also spanned a quarter-century in local radio, along with theatre and TV work. In…
Anne Valery
Before making her mark as one of the main writers of Tenko (1981-84), the BBC Television drama that attracted up to 15 million viewers, Anne Valery had enjoyed a successful career as an actress and…
Sean Caffrey
Sean Caffrey was part of a generation of actors that came out of Northern Ireland in the 1960s to find prominence on British television. He made his small-screen debut in Boy in the Smoke in…
Edwin Shirley
Edwin Shirley was a larger-than-life character with a love of showbusiness, unbounded enthusiasm for everything he did, and a great generosity of spirit. He was best known for founding the companies Edwin Shirley Trucking and…
Patrick Garland
If anyone working in British theatre over the past half-century could claim to have been a renaissance man, it was surely Patrick Garland, whose multifaceted life included spells as a poet, novelist, editor, actor, television…
Tim Hampton
From tea boy to managing director at 20th Century Fox – the stuff of which legends are made, but also the true-life story of the British film producer Tim Hampton. During a cinema career marked…
Graeme Gilmour
Graeme Gilmour was one of Scotland’s greatest designers and sculptors who created theatrical and outdoor public events that featured spectacular steel-framed structures, often encased in his unique signature – industrial shrink-wrap – and illuminated with…
Alan Protheroe
At the end of a difficult time as the assistant director general of the BBC, Alan Protheroe left the Corporation in 1987, concerned at what he saw as its declining standards. In particular, he perceived…
Rashid Karapiet
Born in India, Rashid Karapiet was an actor, singer, playwright, broadcaster and teacher who came to Britain in the 1950s to train at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school, after which he took a teacher-training…
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
A German Jew who moved to India, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won worldwide fame after she was awarded two Oscars for her adaptations of quintessentially English novels, A Room With a View (1985) and Howards End…
Nosher Powell
At one point ranked third as a heavyweight boxer in Britain, Nosher Powell went on to be a leading stuntman in some of the most famous films made in the UK. His work was nearly…
Victor Graham
For 38 years, summer rep at the Civic Theatre in Ayr – first weekly, then fornightly – was in the hands of Victor Graham. Modern comedies, whodunnits and the more serious work of Shaw and…
Noel Goodwin
A critic blessed with the ability of writing about music and dance equally proficiently, Noel Goodwin worked for Fleet Street newspapers for nearly 50 years. He was also an adept author and a fine broadcaster….
Marianne Morley
Marianne Morley, who has died after a long fight with cancer, was a stalwart of the National Theatre company for many years. Growing up in Milborne Port near Sherborne, Marianne was one of four children…
Mary-Jane Burcher
As personal assistant to the musical comedy star Evelyn Laye, the seaside entertainer and pantomime dame Clarkson Rose, and the singer/comedian Max Bygraves, Mary-Jane Burcher spent a lifetime on the fringes of showbusiness. The daughter…
Hans Moretti
Boasting the accolade of having more entries in the Guinness Book of Records than any other magician, Hans Moretti was always keen to go one step further than his fellow illusionists. He chose to play…
Derek Watkins
A trumpeter who could move effortlessly between classical music, pop and jazz, Derek Watkins enjoyed one achievement in particular – he was heard on all of the 23 James Bond soundtracks from Dr No (1962)…
Pat Keen
For nearly 50 years, the actor Pat Keen took a wide range of supporting roles on television and in theatre productions staged all over Britain. At the age of 18, she was given a job…
Basil Coleman
A master of epic production, Basil Coleman directed the premieres of the Benjamin Britten operas Billy Budd (1951) and The Turn of the Screw (1954) before moving on to take charge of stellar television dramas…
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