Kenneth Gilbert obit

Kenneth Gilbert: Actor who played Lear and King John but was best known as businessman Oliver Banks in Crossroads

On television, Gilbert played a succession of doctors, colonels, detectives and police surgeons 

He was not on the list.

A character actor with a long career on stage and screen, Kenneth Gilbert spent much of his working life jumping from one role to another, often playing authority figures, but he had a longer run as self-made business executive Oliver Banks in Crossroads.

Oliver was a snob who unsuccessfully tried to reunite his son, Kevin (David Moran), with a former girlfriend when he disapproved of his choice of wife, Glenda Brownlow (Lynette McMorrough), because she was simply a motel waitress. The actor's biggest storyline during a three-year stint in the serial (1981-83) came when the usually respectable Oliver had an affair with Sharon Metcalfe (Carolyn Jones), a secretary at the motel garage who had become its manager.

It began with a visit by Oliver to get his car indicators fixed and Sharon telling him that a half-share in the business was up for sale. He bought it – and the affections of someone who had a reputation for bedding older men, including two of her former bosses at the garage. Although he left his wife, Sally (Patricia Mort, then Wendy Williams), the affair eventually ended and Oliver and Sally left for Canada.

Gilbert was born in Plymouth, the son of Elsie (née Williams) and Alfred, a boilermaker. After his father took his trade to Malta's Naval dockyard in 1935, Gilbert was educated at Chiswick House School, in Sliema. Returning to Britain 10 years later he attended Devonport High School, Plymouth, and Sevenoaks School.

Following service in the RAF's Naval Rescue service, he managed ancient woodland in Scotland for the Forestry Commission before realising his ambition to act. He trained at the Corona Academy, Chiswick, and made his professional début with a French mime group.

Performing with the company at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (1956-60) gave Gilbert a solid grounding in classical roles. His parts included Valentine in Twelfth Night, Balthasar in Romeo and Juliet, the Priest in Hamlet and the Doctor in King Lear. John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Dorothy Tutin and Michael Redgrave were among his contemporaries.

He landed more prominent parts in repertory theatre, such as Maxim de Winter in Rebecca (1963) and the title roles in King John (1964) and King Lear (1965) at Northampton Theatre Royal – where he met his future wife, the actress Beth Harris – as well as Solness in The Master Builder at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre (1975).

After touring with the Old Vic Theatre company in Henry IV and Henry V (1974-75), Gilbert continued at the Old Vic, London, until 1979, notably as Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra and Cornwall in King Lear. He later took the title role in an RSC production of The Wizard of Oz at the Theatre Royal, Bath (1994-95).

On television, Gilbert played a succession of doctors, colonels, detectives and police surgeons. He took different roles in six of the The Granville Melodramas (1955-56), an anthology of seven Victorian plays and one of ITV's earliest series. Later, he appeared in the 1976 Doctor Who story "The Seeds of Doom" as a corrupt civil servant eaten by the Krynoid, a flesh-eating weed.

He fared little better in the political dramas House of Cards (1990) and its sequel, To Play the King (1993), when he acted Harold Earle, the Education Secretary who withdraws from the party leadership battle after Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) uses photographs of him with a male prostitute as blackmail.

Following the death of his wife in 2012, Gilbert, who died of stomach cancer, was reunited with a former girlfriend, the actress and model Caron Gardner.

Kenneth Alfred Gilbert, actor: born Plymouth, Devon 24 June 1931; married 1966 Beth Harris (died 2012; one daughter); died Stradbroke, Suffolk 29 October 2015.

 

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fights arranged by

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