Peter Hammond (15 Nov 1923 - 12 Oct 2011)

[Dandy Forsdyke]

Jaz Wiseman on The Avengers Forum has posted that Peter Hammond has sadly passed away.

Wikipedia entry:

He made his film debut in Waterloo Road in 1945 and went onto carve a career playing handsome boy next door types throughout the late forties and early fifties most notably as Peter Hawtrey in The Huggetts Trilogy - Here Come the Huggetts (1948), Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad (both 1949).
Other films include Holiday Camp (1947), Helter Skelter (1949), Morning Departure (1950), The Adventurers (1951) and X the Unknown (1956).
Prominent television roles include Hofmanstahl in The Adventures of William Tell and Lt. Edward Beamish in The Buccaneers.
In the 1960s he turned to directing television programmes such as The Avengers, Armchair Theatre and Out of the Unknown. He continued to direct many popular TV series of seventies, eighties and nineties including Rumpole of the Bailey, Tales of the Unexpected, The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Morse.

[Brett Sinclair]

[Not to be confused with Peter J. Hammond (writer)]


Watched many of Peter's series over the years. My thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends.

[wellendcanons]

Very sad news. Peter Hammond was one of my favourite TV directors. I loved his unusual work with camera angles and his close-up shots of a photograph and the person in the photograph standing in the background. He also used many clever window and mirror shots too. One commentary on one of The Avengers DVD's said he spent more time getting this right than he did working on the actors. Unorthodox, but superb.

Peter Hammond.

[dicky2006]

He was very good as an actor in both Soho Incident and Confession and his work in television was always of the highest quality.

[Gerald Lovell]

Very sad news. A good-looking actor and a very distinctive, stylish director. Another great loss.

[julian_craster]

Obituary: Peter Hammond


19 Oct 2011
Daily Telegraph
Peter Hammond - Telegraph





Peter Hammond and Susan Shaw in 'Vote for Huggett' (1949)



Peter Hammond, who died on October 12 aged 87, was an actor and, later, a director, when he helped to transform staid television productions with methods and techniques inspired by Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

With looks reminiscent of the young James Stewart, Hammond made his screen debut in Waterloo Road in 1945 and went on to play boy-next-door types in several more films throughout the late Forties and early Fifties, most notably in the “Huggetts” series , popular light comedies in which he first appeared as Harry Huggett but later took the role of Peter Hawtrey. To promote the films he toured the Rank cinema circuit, performing a live-double act with his co-star Diana Dors.

Hammond went on to star in such early television series as The Buccaneers (as Lt Beamish) and The Adventures of William Tell (as Hofmanstahl), before embarking on a BBC television director’s course in the late 1950s.

Television camera techniques of the time, even in dramas, were wooden and rudimentary. Actors were lined up in a row, with one camera per face, and another in reserve for wide shots. Hammond helped to change all that. During the 1960s, when he directed such series as The Avengers (for which he won a Director’s Bafta in 1965), Armchair Theatre and Out of the Unknown, he carved a reputation for his fresh and unusual work with camera angles, including clever mirror and window shots which added to the drama by heightening atmosphere and tension. If critics sometimes felt that he paid more attention to visual effects than the actors, his approach proved extremely popular with television viewers and had a huge influence on his profession.

He was born Peter Hammond Hill in Sheffield on November 15 1923. Inspired by his father, a picture restorer and watercolourist, he started work as a scenic artist at Sheffield Repertory Theatre before turning to acting “to earn some cash”. He began appearing in West End productions aged 17 before getting parts in films. His other credits as an actor include Morning Departure (1950, with John Mills); The Adventurers; (1951) and X the Unknown (1956).

After switching to behind-the-camera work, he forged a reputation as a director of classic BBC drama serials, beginning with a 12-part adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo (1964), with Alan Badel as Dantes. In his Hereward the Wake (1965), Alfred Lynch took the title role as the son of Lady Godiva who wages an unsuccessful guerrilla war against William the Conqueror in 11th-century England; in The Three Musketeers (1966) Jeremy Brett was in swashbuckling form as D’Artagnon.

In 1976, his seven-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend starred Leo McKern, Jane Seymour, Jack Wild and Warren Clarke; Wuthering Heights (1978) paired Ken Hutchinson as Heathcliff with Kay Adshead as Cathy. Meanwhile, in Dark Angel (1989), a Gothic thriller based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, Peter O’Toole excelled as the creepy uncle.

Hammond was tempted by but resisted Hollywood, which seemed to him more about making profits than making films, and he ventured only once into feature films, directing the British film Spring and Port Wine, starring James Mason.

He continued to direct popular television series until the 1990s, including Rumpole of the Bailey, starring Leo McKern, Inspector Morse, starring John Thaw and based on the Colin Dexter detective stories, and many episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series, starring Jeremy Brett, on ITV.

Forced to retire due to ill health in the mid-1990s, Peter Hammond devoted himself to painting and to caring for his wife, Maureen, in her last years.

He is survived by two daughters and three sons.

Peter Hammond, born November 15 1923, died October 12 2011

[chuffnobbler]

I have read that Peter Hammond was born Peter Hammond-Hill. I wonder if one of his two daughters is Juliet Hammond-Hill?

[DaveK]

I was saddened to read of Peter's death.

I edited three of the films he made for the BBC and he was a joy to work with. Indeed it was always great fun to be in his company and this sense of fun was ever present in his directorial work – the way he chose to stage scenes. If it was at all possible no scene would be complete without a mirror shot or, if that proved impossible, a half reflecting glass would be used instead. This certainly lead to some visually interesting set ups.

I had remembered him from his appearances in the 'Huggets' films (when I was a child) but never dreamed that I would ever meet up or indeed work with him. It was an odd quirk of fate that only last week Film 4 showed 'Morning Departure' in which he appeared as Sub-Lt. Oakley

We last saw each other about a couple of years ago and he had not changed – still his old fun filled self and still challenging London's traffic as he cycled around his home patch of Chiswick.

[julian_craster]

Peter Hammond: Stage and screen actor who went on todirect classic television shows

Friday 04 November 2011

INDEPENDENT
Peter Hammond: Stage and screen actor who went on todirect classic television shows - Obituaries - News - The Independent


Among directors of television drama, Peter Hammond, who has died one month short of his 88th birthday, was unquestionably in the front rank. With his penchant for unusual angles and sudden cuts between cameras, his work on the early years of The Avengers, from 1961 to 1964, helped to move it from noir-type beginnings towards a playful, off-kilter brand of its own. Once the medium's technology had caught up with him, his prowling camera and inclination towards reflections added greatly to the atmosphere of Granada's Sherlock Holmes adaptations in the 1980s and early '90s, and consolidated the success of Inspector Morse (Central, 1987-2000).

He had originally been an actor, with some success as a juvenile lead. His West End début was in March 1943 at the Saville, in Junior Miss, an American comedy. Audiences for a light suburban piece, Fly Away Peter, at the King's, Hammersmith in May 1947, responded well to the lean, fair-haired Hammond as a shy, rejected suitor, nicknamed "Pie-Face". On the opening night, they urged him to make a curtain speech, but he declined. In August it transferred to the St James. He was not short of female attention during the run; the following year, he married the actress Maureen Glynne.

He continued to be cast in domestic situations, his film début coming in a melodrama, They Knew Mr Knight (1945). He was then Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison's son in Holiday Camp (1947). The pair re-teamed for Here Come the Huggetts (1948), with Diana Dors running riot as their flirtatious niece, Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad (1949). Hammond also returned for these, albeit playing a different character.

He repeated his stage role in the film of Fly Away Peter (1948), and its sequel, Come Back Peter (1952). Later, his only film as director was Bill Naughton's Spring and Port Wine (1970), with James Mason as a Northern patriarch.

At the Lyric, Hammersmith in 1948, he starred in An English Summer, centring on the RAF. Eleven years later, for the BBC, it would be one of his first directorial assignments for television.His first small-screen work was Man of Two Minds (1950), an hour-long, specially written play set in a repertory company. In one of his last parts he was a regular as a colonial aide in The Buccaneers (ATV/ITC, 1956-57).

His first directorial credit was a half-hour BBC play, Meeting with Johnny (1960). Leonard White, producer of The Avengers in its vestigial days, described Hammond and his fellow director Don Leaver as "the main strength of the team pulling together the on-air style of the series." Brian Clemens, eventually to become the series' show-runner, subsequently singled out "the brilliant Peter Hammond" as a major contributor. "The budget often limited, say, a general store to a few loaves and fishes – and Hammond, following exceptional precedent, turned those loaves and fishes into multitudinous and stimulating foreground shots."

However, Hammond was not involved in the series' best-remembered, filmed period, preferring to follow White to Armchair Theatre. Crossing over to the BBC, he did their Sunday classic se-rial for autumn 1964, The Count of Monte Cristo, contributing a distinctive overhead shot of Dantes (Alan Badel) being taken to the Château d'If. In the same slot, he shot on location around coastlines for Hereward the Wake (1965).

On BBC2, The White Rabbit (1967) was the story of a real-life war hero, Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas (Kenneth More). Hammond went as far as to use real rats for scenes depicting imprisonment by the Gestapo; however, due to copyright issues, the BBC had to wipe the tapes after one broadcast. In colour, Hammond employed a bold style for Cold Comfort Farm (BBC, 1968). Alastair Sim headed the cast, which included Aubrey Morris, a co-star from Fly Away Peter.

Hammond's series episodes included the Graham Greene anthology Shades of Greene (Thames, 1976) and Rumpole of the Bailey (Thames, 1979). He imbued an air of menace, and contrasted realism with fantasy, in King of the Castle (HTV, 1977), an uncompromising children's series.

Having directed Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (BBC, 1967-68), he oversaw Brett's best remembered, intense performance in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Granada, 1986-88). He also lent a touch of Gothic (incorporating a nod to Hitchcock's Vertigo) to the third episode of Inspector Morse in 1987, making further segments in 1988 and 1990. By the time of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994), Hammond's eye for composition had become practically painterly.

Gavin Gaughan

Peter Charles Hammond Hill (Peter Hammond), actor, director and producer: born London 15 November 1923; married 1948 Maureen Glynne (died 2005; three sons, two daughters); died 12 October 2011.

[Brief Encounter]

A friend of mine is certain he used to appear as an expert on Antiques Roadshow. However, I can find no evidence of this. Is he wrong?

[Steve Crook]

A friend of mine is certain he used to appear as an expert on Antiques Roadshow. However, I can find no evidence of this. Is he wrong?

What's your friend's name? I'm sure someone will be able to help remind him if he used to appear on Antiques Roadshow as an expert

Steve

[JamesM]

The only actor who I can think of who became a regular on Antiques Roadshow is Brand Inglis who appeared in White Corridors as the child around which much of the plot revolves.

[wellendcanons]

This was one of Peter's masterpieces. Sherlock Holmes in The Golden Pince-Nez.

wec

[DaveK]

There is an affectionate and moving Obituary of Peter by Oliver Bayldon in the current issue of 'Prospero', the BBC in house newsletter for retired Staff. At the end of it Oliver writes that those who wish could make a donation, in Peter's name, to The Woodland Trust by either phoning 0800 093 8466 and quoting Peter Hammond or ref. no. 6732915. Or instead could post a cheque directly to
The Woodland Trust at
Kempton Way,
Grantham,
Lincolnshire,
NG 31 6LL

This seems an excellent idea and is what I will be doing.

[wellendcanons]

As a tribute to Peter Hammond I'm watching the three episodes of Inspector Morse he directed over consecutive nights. Last night I watched Service Of All The Dead, a superbly atmospheric episode. Tonight it's The Settling Of The Sun, my least favourite of the three but still terrific due to Peter's skillful direction. Then tomorrow night it's The Sins Of The Fathers, set on Morse's home territory - a brewery! This episode was written by Jeremy Burnham, who is also a favourite of mine from his various ITC performances, not least as Walter Previs in the Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) episode The House On Haunted Hill.

Next week would have been Peter's 88th birthday.

wec

[Brief Encounter]

The only actor who I can think of who became a regular on Antiques Roadshow is Bran Inglis who appeared in White Corridors as the child around which much of the plot revolves.

As my friend is thinking of someone in Petula Clark's films, that could well be the one he meant. Thanks!

[DaveK]

As part of the Dickens Season at the NFT on Sat 14th of Jan all 7 x 50 minute episodes of Peter's production of 'Our Mutual Friend' will be shown. Quite a marathon viewing session...there will be 2 intervals!

[Merton Park]

One of those wonderful English actors that seemed to regularly pop up with good reliable characters in so many films in my youth. Always liked him.

RIP

[Nick Dando]

From the Guardian

Peter Hammond obituary | Television & radio | The Guardian

Nick



Peter Hammond obituary
Actor who became a prolific TV director
Dick Fiddy
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 January 2012 16.23 GMT


Peter Hammond, who has died aged 87, moved from acting to become a prolific TV director, contributing to series including The Avengers, Granada's Sherlock Holmes series and Inspector Morse. It was with The Avengers in 1961 that he first made his mark. Hammond and his colleague Don Leaver directed 19 of the opening 26 episodes of the series between them and were largely responsible for creating its distinctive look in its pre-film days.

Hammond established himself as a quick worker who still managed to bring flair to his episodes. He developed a trademark style in which the confines of the small studio spaces would be enlivened by "foreground interest" and scenes would be distorted or heightened by being shot through glass or caught in the reflection of a mirror. This distinctive visual effect would reappear in productions as diverse as the studio-bound Three Musketeers (1966) and Dark Angel, the BBC's 1987 version of Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas. Peter Neill, a colleague who worked with Hammond on various productions of the time, remembers him as "very efficient, yet creative, with a friendly manner and sense of humour". He also had a good rapport with actors, perhaps due to his own background in that area.

He was born Peter Hammond Hill in Victoria, central London. His father, Charles, was an art restorer and his mother, Ada, a nurse. After attending Harrow School of Art, he became a scenic artist before turning to acting, under the name Peter Hammond, notably in the postwar Gainsborough film studio rep company, appearing as a regular in their famous Huggett series of films. Later he became a regular in the ITV series The Buccaneers (1956-57) and a semi-regular in The Adventures of William Tell (1958-59), before joining the BBC in 1959 as a trainee producer.

When his original Avengers' producer Leonard White – who had moved on to take over ITV's flagship drama anthology, Armchair Theatre – decided to push the barriers of that series by mounting an improvised play, he had no hesitation in offering the directing chores to the fast, but flamboyant, Hammond. The result was Ambrose (1965), a distinctive half-hour drama which starred Donald Pleasence and Elizabeth Begley and went out under the Armchair Mystery Theatre banner. This was one of the productions that resulted in Hammond receiving the 1965 Guild of Television Producers and Directors award (later known as Baftas).

He continued with The Avengers, working on the show when Honor Blackman was brought in. In a rare interview (conducted just a few months ago), Hammond noted: "I thought Pat Macnee was rather feminine, so I wanted Honor to be the more masculine one, hence the leather trouser suit."

Following his stint on The Avengers, Hammond was in great demand and worked on a long and diverse list of dramas (including Out of the Unknown, Theatre 625, The Wednesday Play and Tales of the Unexpected) before he contributed to the Sherlock Holmes series featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. The episodes he directed were some of the favourites among the show's vocal fans, with the feature-length The Sign of the Four (1987) and The Eligible Bachelor (1993) particularly singled out for praise. Around the same time he was also contributing to another ratings heavyweight, directing episodes of Inspector Morse.

In 1970 he made his feature-film debut (as a director) with Spring and Port Wine, based on Bill Naughton's stage play and starring James Mason. But his biggest contribution would be to the small screen, despite the fact that he often referred to himself as "just a television hack". His friend and collaborator, the composer Paul Lewis, said: "His work was always visually brilliant – he was a visual poet and his work was deeply sensitive and deeply personal. He was a private man, strangely contrary to the image of gregarious bonhomie he gave whilst working. He came alive when he worked."

Peter married the actor Maureen Glynne in 1948; she died in 2005. He is survived by their five children, Nicky, Juliette, Tim, Hugo and Will, and four grandchildren.

• Peter Charles Hammond Hill, actor and television director, born 15 November 1923; died 12 October 2011