Brittish Actors
Paddy Stone was born in 1924 in Canada. His career in show business was primarily based in England. He made his film debut in 1955 as a dancer in “As Long As They’re Happy”. Other films included “Value for Money”, “The Good Companions” and “Victor, Victoria”. He died in 1986.
Roy Holder was born in Birmingham in 1946. His first major film roles were in 1961 in “Whistle Down the Wind” with Alan Bates and Hayley Mills and “Term of Trial” with Laurence Oliver and Sarah Miles. He was in Franco Zefferelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” in 1968 and “Loot”.
IMDB entry:
Roy Holder was born on June 15, 1946 in Birmingham, England as Roy Trevor Holder. He is an actor, known for Pride & Prejudice (2005), Robin Hood (2010) and Romeo and Juliet(1968).Educated at Upper Thomas Street School Aston, Birmingham.
Ann Lynn is a versatile British actress who has given several incisive performances in films in 1960’s UK cinema. She was born in 1933 in Fulham, London. Her movie debut was in “Johnny You’re Wanted” in 1956. She gave terrific performances in “Piccadilly Third Stop” in 1960 and as Earl Cameron’s wife in “Flame in the Streets”.
Fiona Lewis is a beautiful British actress who has starred in Hollywood movies. She was born in Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex in 1946. Among her early credits is an episode of “The Saint” with Roger Moore in 1966. Her UK films include “Dance of the Vampires”, “Otley” with Romy Schneider and “Villian” in 1970 with Richard Burton. In Hollywood she was featured in “Wanda Nevada” and “Strange Invaders”.
TCM overview:
This pretty British actress got her start being menaced and looking attractively frightened in low-budget horror films. She was first seen as a busty serving girl in Roman Polanski’s ambitious “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967), then went on to lend an unwonted grace to such blood-soaked fare as “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972), and “Blue Blood” (1973).
It wasn’t all blood and guts, however. Lewis had a supporting role in the slapstick spy comedy “Otley” (1969), played a highwayman’s wench in “Where’s Jack?” (also 1969), was Ian McShane’s girlfriend in the Richard Burton vehicle “Villain” (1971) and dallied with Liszt in Ken Russell’s bizarre, over-the-top “Lisztomania” (1975).
Dismayed by the way her career was going in England, Lewis ventured to the US. She appeared in the Dino De Laurentiis potboiler “Drum” (1976), played a journalist in “Stunts” (1977), and had a few good moments in Brian De Palma’s “The Fury” (1978), as a sexy government agent who comes to a very unhappy end. She showed up in the unsuccessful Western “Wanda Nevada” (1979), was a deliciously evil nurse in the Australian “Strange Behavior/Dead Kids” (1979), had a nice bit as an alien in “Strange Invaders” (1983) and played a doctor in Joe Dante’s sci-fi adventure “Innerspace” (1987).
Although Lewis has been seen on British TV (and was made sport of on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”), her lone American appearance was as Lucy in the CBS version of “Dracula” (1974). Between film roles, Lewis has scripted a number of screenplays, worked as a journalist and has had her artwork exhibited.
Article from 1986 in “The New Yorker”:
PERSONAL HISTORY by Fiona Lewis about about her career as a B-movie actress. Fiona Lewis, a British upper-class girl, arrived in Los Angeles, from London, in the early ’70s. She slipped easily into modeling and acting. The story of her rise to semi-fame is simply this: she was willing to take her clothes off. In L.A., she dated Cary Grant for a while until she realized that it was his daughter, not him, who actually required a date. …She had never taken acting classes, but she was selected by Roman Polanski to play a bawdy maid in his film “The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck.”
In California, she was picked by Dino De Laurentiis to be in her first Hollywood film, “Drum”–two hours jampacked with sadism, depravity, and melodrama… She starred in Michael Laughlin’s “Strange Behavior,” playing a diabolical scientist. During the ’70s, Lewis also had liasons with at least 4 writers, under the false impression that with them she would be allowed to reveal her secret intellectual self.
She lived with a Chicago screenwriter named John until he seduced the leading lady in his directorial debut. Meanwhile, Lewis spent a lot of time at Tony Richardson’s home, where she met writers Nos. 2 and 4… Next, Lewis posed for “Playboy.”
By 1977, she had made a few forays into journalism, freelancing for the L.A. “Times.” In between writing assignments and unsatisfactory affairs with writers, she hung out with her girlfriends: women also negotiating the end of their 20s…
After her 4th affair, with a writer named Douglas, Lewis decided to end her infatuation with writers. One of her last acting attempts was “The Fury,” a flashy terrorist yarn of psychic horror, with nudity and oceans of blood.
The movie featured a particularly gruesome sex scene, which was later cut, but still photos from the omitted scene turned up years later, after Lewis had spent 10 years as a screenwriter and had written her first novel.
At a reading she was giving in an L.A. bookstore, a man asked her to sign one of those photos from the film. Whether she liked it or not, she was still in show business.The above “New Yorker” article can be also accessed online here.
Jennifer Kendal
Jennifer Kendal was born in Southport, Merseyside in 1933. Her parents were actors and her younger sister is Felicity Kendal. Her parents ran a travelling theatre company and spent many years performing Shakespeare at venues throughout India. Jennifer married the great actor Shashi Kapoor. They starred together in many fims including some by Merchant Ivory. Her movie credits ombay Talkie” in 1970 and “36 Chowringhee Lane” in 1981. Sadly Jennifer Kendal died in 1984.
IMDB entry:
Jennifer Kendal was born on February 28, 1934 in Southport, England. She was an actress and costume designer, known for 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Heat and Dust (1983) andBombay Talkie (1970). She was married to Shashi Kapoor. She died on September 7, 1984 in London, England.
Janet Munro star shone brightly but sadly all to briefly. For a period in the late 1950’s until the very early 1960’s she starred in some very popular and then interesting movies.
She was born in Blackpool in 1934. In 1958 she had a leading role in “The Young and the Guilty” opposite Andrew Ray.
Shortly afterwards she went to Hollywood where she signed a Walt Disney contract and starred opposite Sean Connery in “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” and opposite James MacArthur in both “Swiss Family Robinson” and “Third Man on the Mountain”.
She was leading lady to Tommy Steele in “Tommy the Toredor”, John Stride in “Bitter Harvest” and opposite Edward Judd in the cult classic “The Day the Earth Caught Fire”.
Her film career fizzled out somewhat afterwards and she died at a young age in 1972. She was married to actor Tony Wright and then Ian Hendry who survived her
His biography features Janet Munro extensively.
Michael Cochrane was born in 1947. He has had a very profilic career on British television. He made his debut in the series “Warship” in 1974. His film credits include “Victory” in 1981. “The Return of the Soldier”, “Real Life” and “The Iron Lady”. He plays Captain Smith in the forthcoming series “Titanic” to mark the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the ship. He is married to actress Belinda Carroll.
IMDB entry:
He may not be a true household name but Michael Cochrane’s face is a familiar one to British Television viewers. Cochrane’s resume is an impressive one. He has starred in almost every long-running main stream British television show since the 1970s. Versatile and balanced understated and elegant this actor has always been somewhat typecast as upper class business men or members of the British gentry. He has a menacing on-screen presence in villainous roles. Cochrane remains a busy and sought-after actor both on stage and screen and indeed radio.
Ed Stoppard was born in London in 1974. He is the son of playwright Tom Stoppard and physican Dr Miriam Stoppard. His films include “The Pianist” and “Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang”. He is currently starring in the hit television series “Upstairs Downstairs”.
Derrick O’Connor made three films with Terry Gilliam, he took on Mel Gibson in hand-to-hand combat as a memorable and particularly nasty South African villain in Lethal Weapon 2 in 1989 and he wound up in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise.
But O’Connor honed his craft on stage in Edinburgh in the 1960s and 1970s, working with both the Traverse and Royal Lyceum theatre companies before heading for Hollywood, where his talents seemed to fit comfortably into a string of roles as criminals and priests.
He was born in Dublin in 1941, but grew up in London and in his twenties relocated to Edinburgh, where he appeared in several Traverse productions in the late 1960s, including Megan Terry’s experimental “theatre game” Comings and Goings and The Lunatic, The Secret Sportsman and The Woman Next Door, satirical theatre by the one-time Scotsman television critic Stanley Eveling.
O’Connor worked with the Royal Lyceum Theatre company at a particularly auspicious time when Richard Eyre was director in the early 1970s. He was Biondello in The Taming of the Shrew, with Antony Webb as Petruchio and Kika Markham as Katharina. His other Lyceum productions included Oh! What a Lovely War and Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker.
By the early 1970s he was also getting small roles in television and film. His association with Gilliam began on the 1977 fantasy film Jabberwocky, which was inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem about the eponymous monster. O’Connor was credited in the role of “flying hogfish peasant”.
He was the robber leader in Gilliam’s Time Bandits (1981) and played Dowser, a sinister Central Services character in Gilliam’s Kafkaesque comedy-drama Brazil (1985).
In audio commentary for the DVD releases, Gilliam revealed that unlike most actors O’Connor was very happy to cut down on his number of lines. In Time Bandits he communicates in grunts. In Brazil he spent much of his time echoing the dialogue of his partner Spoor, played by Bob Hoskins.
Other credits from around the time include The Missionary (1982), Hope and Glory (1987) and the starring role in the Australian television comedy-drama series Stringer (1988), about a journalist who links up with a taxi driver to pursue new business ventures. He also worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He got his big Hollywood break when he dyed his hair blonde and adopted a South African accent to play Pieter Vorstedt in Lethal Weapon 2. Vorstedt was a vicious South African agent involved in illegal drugs who clashes with Gibson’s character Martin Riggs. At the climax of the film the two come face to face in Los Angeles’s dockland area. Vorstedt tries to stab Riggs, but Riggs turns the knife on Vorstedt and finishes him off by dropping a cargo container on him, prompting audience cheers. CinemaBlend website noted: “Not enough good things can be said about what Derrick O’Connor brought to Lethal Weapon 2, as Pieter Vorstedt remains one of the franchise’s best characters… If you are looking for a reminder of how strong his performance was in that particular film, you can check out the scene in which he reveals that he murdered Riggs’s wife.”
Whereas some actors might fill their delivery with a perverse glee, O’Connor relates the story matter-of-factly, with only a hint of delight in his adversary’s torment.
O’Connor decided to stay on in California after Lethal Weapon, made his home in the Santa Barbara area and found fairly regular work in American television and movies, while maintaining his interest in theatre as well.
Having fallen out with Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 2, he got on no better with Arnold Schwarzenegger in End of Days (1999). Schwarzenegger plays an ex-cop working in private security. O’Connor’s character is a priest called Thomas Aquinas, who effectively announces the “End of Days” when he tells Schwarzenegger: “The thousand years has ended, the Dark Angel is loosed from his prison.”
Schwarzenegger is forced to kill him to save himself, but is arrested and police refuse to believe him as it transpires Aquinas had no tongue and therefore no power of speech.
O’Connor had a major recurring role as one of the heads of a crime organisation in the second season of Jennifer Garner spy drama Alias (2002), he played another priest, lecturing Ben Affleck, in the 2003 superhero movie Daredevil, and he had a small role as an old man who signs up with Johnny Depp’s crew in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006).
O’Connor also worked in theatre in San Francisco and Los Angeles and he directed a stage production of Krapp’s Last Tape, by his Nobel Prize-winning compatriot Samuel Beckett, and a play called Rock Justice, by Marty Balin, better known as a member of the rock band Jefferson Airplane than for his theatre work.
He continued working until recently and is survived by his wife Mimi and son Max.
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.