Roger Tonge

Infobox actor
name = Roger Tonge
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birthname = Roger Tonge
birthdate = 30 January, 1946
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deathdate = Dda|1981|2|26|1946|1|30
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occupation = Television actor
yearsactive =
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Roger Tonge (30 January 1946 - 26 February 1981) was a British actor.

Born Anthony Roger Tonge in Birmingham, he was working as an £8-a-week post office clerk and performing in amateur dramatics in the evenings when he landed the role of Sandy Richardson, the motel owner's son in the ITV soap opera, "Crossroads", a role he would play for 17 years. He played the disabled son of Meg Richardson, played by the actress Noele Gordon, in the much maligned soap opera.

But it was the actor's fight against an incurable cancer that resulted in his departure from the programme before the programme was axed. During Tonge's tenure in the series, his character became a wheelchair user after a car crash, and in a case of life imitating art, Tonge became one too through his illness. Tonge became the first disabled actor in a soap Fact|date=July 2008; however, it was something he always played down and his illness was never talked about. Fact|date=July 2008

His inroad to an acting career seems like something from a story book; in 1964, when Tonge dropped in at ATV during his lunch break to enquire about acting parts, a cleaner, presuming he had an audition for 'Crossroads', sent him to a production meeting. He arrived just as Production Manager Margaret French was leaving. She handed him a script and invited him to return for an audition. Reg Watson, the Producer, had already interviewed hundreds of young hopefuls for the part of Sandy, but without finding what the show was looking for. Eventually when Tonge and another hopeful were shortlisted for the part, both interviewees were asked to act out their reaction to their pet dog being run over. Tonge produced the best woeful response and the part became his.

The show was criticised heavily by the critics and Tonge along with many other members of the cast were part of their target. He was reported as having laughed off their jibes, by saying "I'm allergic to criticism".

Although he was a regular in the soap opera, Tonge found time to appear on other television programmes, including "Z-Cars", "Nearest and Dearest" and 'Detective'. He was also in the film "Catch Me Going Back".

In 1981, after a long fight from Hodgkin's Disease - a cancer of the Lymph Glands - Tonge died at the age of 35. He had caught chicken pox and died of heart failure; his system unable to cope with the infection. A constant companion at his side was his girlfriend, actress Sonia Fox who played Sheila Harvey in 'Crossroads'. By the time of his death, she had already left the series and the couple had kept their romance secret from the press. Noele Gordon, who played Tonge's screen mother, paid tribute to him as the son she had never had in real life.

References

* [http://jhochet.tripod.com/id217.html] The death of Roger Tonge

External links

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