George Sewell
One of my favourite actors, George Sewell, passed away on Sunday. He was 82. He was an actor whose work I grew up with, thanks to his performances in Dr Who and particular UFO. He will be sadly missed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/04/05/db0503.xml
George Sewell, the actor, who died on Sunday aged 82, had one of the
best-known faces in Britain, thanks to dozens of appearances on
television and in films, notably Get Carter (1971).
With his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks, Sewell was as
at home playing shady villains as he was in police and thriller roles,
which dated from the early 1960s, when he appeared in series such as
Z-Cars, to the 1990s comedy The Detectives.
He was still working until recently, making television appearances in
Doctors and The Bill (both 2005) and, last year, in Casualty.
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An accomplished stage actor, and nicknamed in the business "Chuck", he
played principal roles in Oliver, Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be and
Oh! What A Lovely War in the 1960s, and more recently in Dial M for
Murder (1998) and Who Killed Agatha Christie? (2002). His last stage
appearance was touring in Francis Durbridge's drama The Gentle Hook in
2004.
But while the theatre was Sewell's preferred medium, it was his career
in film and television, extending over 40 years, that ensured his
celebrity. He appeared as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Craven in 25
episodes of Special Branch, a 1970s television drama series made by
Euston Films in which he was cast opposite Patrick Mower as Haggerty.
At the height of his Special Branch fame, his appearance on This Is
Your Life topped the television ratings in December 1973.
Twenty years later, Sewell played Supt Frank Cottam, a send-up of the
same character, in The Detectives, with Robert Powell and Jasper Carrott.
George Sewell was born on August 31 1924 at Hoxton in the East End of
London. His father was a printer and his mother came from a family of
florists, his grandmother having sold flowers and bird seed on the
steps of St Paul's.
He left school at 14 and started work as an apprentice printer. At the
start of the Second World War he worked repairing bomb damage before
joining the RAF in 1943; but the war ended before he had completed his
training as a pilot and he was demobbed almost immediately.
During the following three years Sewell took a string of jobs, among
them street photographer, assistant road manager and drummer in a
small rumba band. In 1948 he joined the Merchant Navy and became a
steward on cruise ships, circling the world three times. On his
return, he used his knowledge of languages to work for several seasons
as a motor-coach courier for a travel company before making a late
entry into acting in 1959 aged 35.
A chance encounter with Dudley Sutton and a group of other actors in a
West End pub led to an audition and a job with Joan Littlewood's
Theatre Workshop.
He made his debut in that company's production of Frank Norman and
Lionel Bart's musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be in the West End
in 1960.
Sewell went on to star in two more Littlewood productions, which later
transferred to Paris and Broadway. He continued to make regular
appearances on television, among his more notable parts being that of
Col Alec Freeman in the science fiction series UFO (1970-73), and as
Ratcliffe in Doctor Who (1988).
On the cinema screen, Sewell appeared in several successful and
important films, including Sparrows Can't Sing (1962), shot on
location in Stepney, and Lindsay Anderson's bleak This Sporting Life
(1963) as well as Get Carter, the gritty gangster classic set in
Newcastle and in which he was cast with Michael Caine.
In 2002, touring in Who Killed Agatha Christie? with the dancer Lionel
Blair, Sewell reflected on a career in which he never quite achieved
first-rank stardom. "I don't have enough energy to feel resentment,"
he said. "You couldn't keep on acting if you felt like that. I've been
lucky to work so much.
"We all know great actors who have struggled, so I feel lucky I've
made a good living."
Latterly Sewell divided his time between London and a holiday home at
Cannes in the south of France.
George Sewell is survived by his wife and daughter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/04/05/db0503.xml
George Sewell, the actor, who died on Sunday aged 82, had one of the
best-known faces in Britain, thanks to dozens of appearances on
television and in films, notably Get Carter (1971).
With his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks, Sewell was as
at home playing shady villains as he was in police and thriller roles,
which dated from the early 1960s, when he appeared in series such as
Z-Cars, to the 1990s comedy The Detectives.
He was still working until recently, making television appearances in
Doctors and The Bill (both 2005) and, last year, in Casualty.
advertisement
An accomplished stage actor, and nicknamed in the business "Chuck", he
played principal roles in Oliver, Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be and
Oh! What A Lovely War in the 1960s, and more recently in Dial M for
Murder (1998) and Who Killed Agatha Christie? (2002). His last stage
appearance was touring in Francis Durbridge's drama The Gentle Hook in
2004.
But while the theatre was Sewell's preferred medium, it was his career
in film and television, extending over 40 years, that ensured his
celebrity. He appeared as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Craven in 25
episodes of Special Branch, a 1970s television drama series made by
Euston Films in which he was cast opposite Patrick Mower as Haggerty.
At the height of his Special Branch fame, his appearance on This Is
Your Life topped the television ratings in December 1973.
Twenty years later, Sewell played Supt Frank Cottam, a send-up of the
same character, in The Detectives, with Robert Powell and Jasper Carrott.
George Sewell was born on August 31 1924 at Hoxton in the East End of
London. His father was a printer and his mother came from a family of
florists, his grandmother having sold flowers and bird seed on the
steps of St Paul's.
He left school at 14 and started work as an apprentice printer. At the
start of the Second World War he worked repairing bomb damage before
joining the RAF in 1943; but the war ended before he had completed his
training as a pilot and he was demobbed almost immediately.
During the following three years Sewell took a string of jobs, among
them street photographer, assistant road manager and drummer in a
small rumba band. In 1948 he joined the Merchant Navy and became a
steward on cruise ships, circling the world three times. On his
return, he used his knowledge of languages to work for several seasons
as a motor-coach courier for a travel company before making a late
entry into acting in 1959 aged 35.
A chance encounter with Dudley Sutton and a group of other actors in a
West End pub led to an audition and a job with Joan Littlewood's
Theatre Workshop.
He made his debut in that company's production of Frank Norman and
Lionel Bart's musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be in the West End
in 1960.
Sewell went on to star in two more Littlewood productions, which later
transferred to Paris and Broadway. He continued to make regular
appearances on television, among his more notable parts being that of
Col Alec Freeman in the science fiction series UFO (1970-73), and as
Ratcliffe in Doctor Who (1988).
On the cinema screen, Sewell appeared in several successful and
important films, including Sparrows Can't Sing (1962), shot on
location in Stepney, and Lindsay Anderson's bleak This Sporting Life
(1963) as well as Get Carter, the gritty gangster classic set in
Newcastle and in which he was cast with Michael Caine.
In 2002, touring in Who Killed Agatha Christie? with the dancer Lionel
Blair, Sewell reflected on a career in which he never quite achieved
first-rank stardom. "I don't have enough energy to feel resentment,"
he said. "You couldn't keep on acting if you felt like that. I've been
lucky to work so much.
"We all know great actors who have struggled, so I feel lucky I've
made a good living."
Latterly Sewell divided his time between London and a holiday home at
Cannes in the south of France.
George Sewell is survived by his wife and daughter.