Tim Turner

[Stephen Pickard]

Does anybody know what became of this British actor. He played in many films in the 50's, but I think he will be best remembered for his great voice in many British, mostly Rank released, trailers in the late 50's the 60's and early 70's. He also provided the voice for the late Todd Armstrong in "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963).

When I worked at Pinewood in the early 70's I had the chance to meet him. I aked him if he played Peter Brady in "The Invisible Man" the British ITC series made in the late 50's. He said he took the role over from another actor, Australian I think. The identity of the actor playing the role of Brady was a big secret at the time the series was shown, but when I saw Turner in an episode of "White Hunter", shown about the same time, I recognised the voice immediately.

[Steve Crook]

Stephen Pickard:

Does anybody know what became of this British actor. He played in many films in the 50's, but I think he will be best remembered for his great voice in many British, mostly Rank released, trailers in the late 50's the 60's and early 70's. He also provided the voice for the late Todd Armstrong in "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963).

When I worked at Pinewood in the early 70's I had the chance to meet him. I aked him if he played Peter Brady in "The Invisible Man" the British ITC series made in the late 50's. He said he took the role over from another actor, Australian I think. The identity of the actor playing the role of Brady was a big secret at the time the series was shown, but when I saw Turner in an episode of "White Hunter", shown about the same time, I recognised the voice immediately.

It's not a secret any more. The IMDb reveals all :)



Brady was played by Johnny Scripps until 1960 when Tim Turner took over.



Steve

[MelvynDunster]

I worked with him for many years on commercials and used him as a voice over for countless documentaries. We were good friends but sadly I Also lost touch with him in the Mid Seventies. He moved from Putney to Dulwich and then to Spain. I do have an address somewhere and will try to contact him. An alternative would be to trace him through one of the London production companies he worked for on his rare return trips to London.

[Film Man]

Jonathan Balcon (Sir Michael's Son) informed me that Tim passed away a few months back...He went to his funeral.

Film Man.

[penfold]

Does anybody know what became of this British actor. He played in many films in the 50's, but I think he will be best remembered for his great voice in many British, mostly Rank released, trailers in the late 50's the 60's and early 70's. He also provided the voice for the late Todd Armstrong in "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963).

Sad to hear he's passed on.....



A bit of trivia for you; in 1966, the band that would become Fairport Convention called themselves The Tim Turner Narration.....

[Lord Brett]

It's long been known that the uncredited voice of Dr Peter Brady in the 1959 ITC (or ITP as they were then) series HG Wells Invisible Man was Tim Turner.



Imdb are listing an actor called Johnny Scripps as playing the character for 12 episodes. To be honest, this sounds unlikely as he didn't have much of a career otherwise, being reduced to a crowd extra by 1962 (though he did play The Rumpo Kid in Carry On Cowboy).



I'm watching the series at the moment, but haven't reached the later episodes - does Brady's voice change?

[penfold]

No. I think - but I may be wrong - that Tim Turner was the voice, but Mr Scripps is the physical presence, the Dave Prowse to Tim Turner's James Earl Jones, if that makes sense....

[wadsy]

Was Johnny Scripps a short man ? When the bandages come off there is of



course no head there so I always thought he was short.



( Ive just realised how dumb that sounds).

[darrenburnfan]

Surely, it was Sidney James who played The Rumpo Kid in Carry On Cowboy, not Johnny Scripps.

[Moor Larkin]

When I worked at Pinewood in the early 70's I had the chance to meet him. I aked him if he played Peter Brady in "The Invisible Man" the British ITC series made in the late 50's. He said he took the role over from another actor, Australian I think. The identity of the actor playing the role of Brady was a big secret at the time the series was shown, but when I saw Turner in an episode of "White Hunter", shown about the same time, I recognised the voice immediately.

Robert Beatty (Canadian not Australian) played the voice in the pilot episode but apparently this was never broadcast because the SFX were so poor. There presumably must then have been a delay that led to Beatty becoming unavailable.

Johnny Scripps supposedly was the midget who evidently played the *headless* scenes.

Current sources seem to make a mystery over who played the man in the bandages. There seems no reason to me to suppose it was not Tim Turner all along. Certainly this getty image from 1962 says the man in the bandages is Tim Turner and the nose looks about right.

British actor Tim Turner, star of TV's 'Invisible Man', donates blood to the Red Cross during the Cannes Film Festival, 18th May 1963. (Photo by RDA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

[cinemal]

Vague childhood memories of this TV series were revived today when I bought a Poundland DVD featuring eight episodes including the pilot.

The double-sided disk is of good quality but the plotlines were simplistic. The reason for posting is the surprising amount of British actors who appear in these episodes, most going on to bigger and better things.

Spread across these eight stories were: Dennis Price, Peter Sallis, Derren Nesbitt, Edward Judd, Edwin Richfield, Ernest Clark, Irene Handl, Greta Gynt, Martin Benson, Adrienne Corri,Douglas Wilmer, Joan Hickson, Hazel Court,Zena Marshall, Rupert Davies, Ronald Fraser, Desmond Llewelyn, Leslie Phillips Honor Blackman, Dermot Walsh, Deborah Watling, Jack Watling plus a few more.

Oops! I didn't realise threads already existed on this subject before posting.

[julian_craster]

I shall now have to visit Poundland asap......so many chavs in there !

[cinemal]

:

I shall now have to visit Poundland asap......so many chavs in there !

"Room for one more inside, sir"

[Steve Crook]

The Invisible Man?
I haven't seen it


Go on, you knew someone had to say it - and it was most likely to be me

Steve

[Moor Larkin]

We had this on another Thread someplace quite recently. Scripps was the short person who played the headless man. Tim Turner was the man in the bandages all along. I don't know why this has become such a *mystery*? Tim does a double role in one episode and also plays a hoodlum. I would guess this was just a little injoke by the crew.

You CAN actually see Tim in the very first episode, when, just before he becomes invisible his eyes peer through the glass box where his guinea-pig is. Compare those eyes with the *hoodlum*. They are the same eyes.

The eyes have it !! .....

The first *pilot* episode was voiced by some famous Canadian guy but Ralph Smart was so appalled by the dodgy SFX he scrapped all his plans and went back to the drawing board. The pilot never got broadcast. In the delay, the famous Canadian guy had other things to do and was no longer available. Evidently Ralph used his noggin, got Tim to do the voice instead (at far less cost probably) as well as play the mime, which probably made for a much more *joined-up* illusion anyhow, and then made a thing of the *mystery* for PR..... and people still are taken in by his trickery to this day !!!

A Smart guy indeed.......

[Cooper S]

Tim's distinctive voice was also often heard as the narrator on many of Rank's 'Look at Life' short films, and would have been very familiar to cinema goers in the early 60s, as these films were being screened about the same time that The Invisible Man was doing the rounds on ITV.

[Arfur Teacake]

Apparently a couple of episodes with another voice (perhaps somebody can confirm)
-the rumours are Tim Turner was a bit unreliable in turning up for recordings.

[Gerald Lovell]

It sticks in my mind that the Canadian who supplied the first "voice" was Robert Beatty.

Tim Turner also supplied the voice of Todd Armstrong as Jason in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

[Onedin]

I am not familiar with Tim Turner's works, but one of Fairport Convention's names before they became Fairport Convention was 'Tim Turner's Narration'.