- Colin Jeavons
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Colin Jeavons Born Colin Abel Jeavons
20 October 1929
Newport, Monmouthshire, WalesOccupation Actor Spouse Rosie Jeavons Colin Jeavons (born 20 October 1929, Newport, Monmouthshire) is a Welsh television actor.
Contents
Career
Jeavons is best known as Inspector Lestrade in the Granada television serials The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or the part of the undertaker, Shadrack, in the television situation comedy written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from Waterhouse's novel Billy Liar. He narrated the series Barnaby the Bear and sang the theme tune.
Pete Stampede and Alan Hayes wrote of Jeavons in The Avengers Guest Biography page as "one of those under-rated, ever-present supporting actors who never turn in a bad performance." and as a recurring UFO-obsessed character in the sci-fi comedy Kinvig, "frankly stole the show each and every week."[1]
His most critically acclaimed role was as the neglected and abused child, Donald, in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills (1979). He also featured prominently in the 1990 dramatisation for television of House of Cards by Michael Dobbs, as Tim Stamper, Tory Whip and ally of Ian Richardson's Francis Urquhart. The character returned - promoted initially to Chief Whip, then to Party Chairman - in the sequel, To Play the King. He was already a well-known character in the sixties following his definitive portrayal of Uriah Heep in the BBC TV's first television adaptation of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield in 1965. He had roles in other Dickens adaptations including The Old Curiosity Shop, Great Expectations and Bleak House.
In 1963 he played the extremely reluctant hero Vadassy forced into espionage in Epitaph For a Spy for BBC Television.[2] He is known as a regular character actor on television classical adaptations; he hosted Play School for a time. He played "with chilling authority" in the words of writer David Stuart Davies, Professor Moriarty in The Baker Street Boys (1982), and "with great panache" Inspector Lestrade in the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes). Producer Michael Cox of the Granada Television series for Sherlock Holmes stated frankly that they were given the best Lestrade of his generation.[3]
In 1984, he played the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard in the "Prometheus Unbound" episode of Don Cupitt's Sea of Faith (TV series) for BBC.
In 1986 he acted in Paradise Postponed. In 1985, he played Adolf Hitler in Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil. He also appeared in Doctor Who in the 1966 story The Underwater Menace and the 1981 spin-off K-9 and Company; as Briggs, the lawyer who halts the marriage between Jane and Rochester in the 1983 BBC version of Jane Eyre, twice in cult TV series The Avengers (in "A Touch of Brimstone" and "The Winged Avenger")and once in Adam Adamant Lives! as a murderous fashion designer.
His elder son, Barney Jeavons, managed the British rock band Reuben. In 2007 he emerged from retirement and, heavily bearded, starred as the enigmatic General in Reuben's pop video "Blood, Bunny, Larkhall". In the behind-the-scenes short, Jeavons explained briefly some of the highlights of his acting career.[4]
References
- ^ "Avengers". Theavengers.tv. http://theavengers.tv/forever/pnote-jeavons.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
- ^ "Action TV - Epitaph For A Spy episode guide". Startrader.co.uk. http://www.startrader.co.uk/Action%20TV/guide60s/epispy.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
- ^ Afterword written by Michael S. Cox, Cheshire, 1993, in "The Television Sherlock Holmes" by Peter Haining, revised 3rd Edition, 1994 Virgin Books
- ^ "Behind the scenes of 'Blood, Bunny, Larkhall'". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR7finiUQkk. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
Bibliography
- Starring Sherlock Holmes, David Stuart Davies; Titan Books 2001
External links
Categories:- 1929 births
- Living people
- People from Newport
- Welsh television actors
- Sherlock Holmes
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