Windthrop

High earners who didn't become tax exiles certainly got clobbered. A recent bio of Agatha Christie I read recently highlighted this and apparantly in her later years every time she sat down to right a book she wondered whether it was worth it given that she was doing it for the country's benefit rather than her own.

That's the joke that killed the Music Hall

silverwhistle

Which sounds precisely like the thoughts of someone with clinical depression.

"Trust me, I'm a doctor...!"

batman

Yep!

Bats.

Don't miss out on a chance to win a rare film in Bat-Quiz 13 closing date - 31/8/8.

Windthrop

A very stylish way to go - Sanders had decided years earlier to take his own life on the basis that he didn't want to physically decline and 'have his bottom wiped for him' in his later years. He set an age of 65 which is near enough the age he took his life at.

That's the joke that killed the Music Hall

Maralyn

Yes he did as the butler in Bryan Forbes's "The Wrong Box" completely stole the film from Michael Caine, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. I think he was brought out of retirement for it.

Maralyn

p.s he was a darn good Mr Doolittle.

Maralyn

Yes in my local paper,about a year before he died, there was an antique auction house selling some of his furniture from the Denham House. I did wonder whether it was just the family tying up loose ends before he went or a great need to pay for care both for John and Mary Hayley.

Very sad I thought.

Maralyn

Maralyn

Hear! Hear! Very well said they where certainly not paid their worth.

Maralyn

m35541

Lots of 1950's actors lost out in the late 1960's/early 1970's when the British film industry collapsed. Very few of them kept work - in the early 1970's the likes of Richard Todd and Sylvia Sims had to do cameos in Amicus horror movies to pay the rent.

Although, of couse, the real problem was that their style of stiff upper lip acting was passe with the arrival of the Beatles and the swinging sixties.

duffy moon

Don't know if this one has already been mentioned but Barry Evans (Mulberrry Bush & Mind Your Language) springs to mind.
I think he ended up mini cabbing in Leicester and living in a rundown bungalow, sadly in which he died all alone at the age of 53.
Very sad.

batman

That's not strictly true with regard to these two. Many actors did suffer as you describe but the more established actors found work on stage and on TV.

Toddy took the decision to return to the stage in the 60s and worked almost non-stop on stage throughout the 60s and 70s and appeared in several TV series. Sims career followed much the same path and as she got older she became an accomplished character actor on stage and TV, winning huge aclaim for her performances as Maggie Thatcher.

Re - Barry Evans - very sad end for IMHO one of the better comedy actors of the 60s/70s. There was a story at the time that he had been murdered but IIRC this was inaccurate, he died from an alcohol related illness. I also read that at the time of his death he was up for a role in Eastenders but never made it to the audition.

Bats.

Don't miss out on a chance to win a rare film in Bat-Quiz 13 closing date - 31/8/8.

Moor Larkin

I always remember him being the very good-looking doctor in the house when that series was first made. I always recall being baffled when he disappeared after the first run or two and was 'replaced' as the main character by Richard O'Sullivan......... who I note also features in this Thread.

What were the fates of the other doctors I wonder...............



Just checked and it was Robin Nedwell who took over. Mr. O'Sullivan carried on being the irritating little sneak.......

batman

George Layton is a writer and appears in ads for pensions!
Richard O'Sullivan had a stroke and lives in an actors retirement home.
Geoffrey Davies is still acting, mainly on stage. Last TV appearance was in Eastenders.
Ernest Clark died in 1994 aged 82. He was married to Julia Lockwood (Margaret's daughter).
Robin Nedwell died in 1999 aged 53.

Bats.

Don't miss out on a chance to win a rare film in Bat-Quiz 13 closing date - 31/8/8.

stevie boy

It seems that here is a curse on that TV Doctors series. Nedwell, O, Sullivan and the other poor chap whose name escapes me.

Barry Evans(I just remembered and he is mentioned on this thread)

batman

You mean Barry Evans .... he gets a mention further back up the thread.

Bats.

Don't miss out on a chance to win a rare film in Bat-Quiz 13 closing date - 31/8/8.

ShirlGirl

This is what is in IMDb about Barry Evans:

He trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
During his last years in Melton Mowbray, he was a taxi driver.
Grew up in an orphanage in Twickenham, England, UK.
At age 18 won a John Gielgud scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama.
The circumstances of his early death remain a mystery; he was found dead in his bungalow in Leicestershire, England with bottles of whiskey and aspirins nearby. A youth was charged with his murder, but acquitted on lack of evidence. A local coroner later recorded an open verdict.



As duffy moon said, he was only 53. Extremely sad.