The Stage

Terence Alexander

Published Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 12:30 by Michael Quinn

Tall, handsome, suave and sophisticated, the priesthood was Terence Alexander’s first calling before acting, until, he later confessed, “I realised that celibacy wasn’t for me”.

Born in London on March 11, 1923, Alexander made his professional debut at in 1939 in The Good Companions at Harrogate’s Opera House and spent the next half-century almost constantly in work. His first significant role was playing opposite John Gielgud’s Macbeth in 1941. Seriously wounded while on active service in Italy during the war, he left the army in 1947 with a 50% disability pension and made his film debut the same year.

Extensive repertory experience, exposure in the West End and a burgeoning profile in film (notably as a straight man to Norman Wisdom), radio (in The Toff and Law and Disorder), and television followed in the fifties. The onset of retinitis pigmentosa eventually turned Alexander away from the theatre, the bright stage lights triggering debilitating dizziness and headaches.

Television became his natural home and he first made his mark on the small screen in 17 episodes of the children’s drama series Garry Halliday in the early sixties. In 1967, his laid-back roguish charm, gently insinuating smoothness and underplayed subtlety was to come into its own as the dashing Montague Dartie in the BBC’s ground-breaking adaptation of The Forsyte Saga. Although regularly in work - he would make regular appearances in television staples such as The Avengers, Armchair Theatre, The Pallisers and Terry and June - he was not to find financial security until 1981, when he reluctantly accepted the role of the suave tax exile Charlie Hungerford in the Jersey-based crime drama Bergerac. It was, he said, “the best part I have ever had”.

Television roles were sparse following Bergerac’s end after a decade in 1991, with his last appearance in an episode of Casualty in 1999. He died on May 28 at the age of 86 from Parkinson’s disease.

His first marriage, to the actress Juno Stevas (sister of the politician Norman St John-Stevas), was dissolved after 23 years in 1973. In 1976 he married another actress, Jane Downs, the ex-wife of Gerald Harper, who, along with two sons from his first marriage, survive him.