Gerald Sim obit

Gerald Sim, actor - obituary

Actor who was often cast as a vicar, notably in To the Manor Born and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

 

He was not on the list.

When you watch British films produced by Bryan Forbes and Richard Attenborough between Whistle Down the Wind in 1961 and Shadowlands in 1993, you will find that Gerald Sim, who has died aged 89, was in most of them, usually playing a detective, a doctor or a magistrate of some kind, always trustworthy and on the right side of the law.

He was one of those quiet, unassuming actors whose presence guaranteed dependability: instantly recognizable, soon forgotten, always welcome; an open moon face, a clarion-clear voice (the result of a proper training in repertory theatre), a discreet presence. He was definitely part of the British screen “family”, not least because he was the younger brother of the actor Sheila Sim, Attenborough’s wife.

Coincidentally, he worked at the Leicester Haymarket in 1979 with the actor Karen Lewis before she even met and married Michael Attenborough, the director son of Richard and Sheila. Gerald and Karen appeared together in Howard Barker’s Claw and Frederic Raphael’s An Early Life, Raphael’s first stage play after his break-out success with The Glittering Prizes on television.

“I pray you, remember the Porter,” says that character in Macbeth, played by Sim in the notoriously chaotic and blood-boltered Peter O’Toole production directed by Forbes at the Old Vic in 1980. Alas, we don’t remember him, only a megalomaniac O’Toole and a stranded, though bewitching, Frances Tomelty as Lady M.

Sim was born in Liverpool, Lancashire and made over a hundred film and television appearances, beginning with an uncredited role in the film Fame Is the Spur (1947). Film and TV roles include The L-Shaped Room (1962), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), King Rat (1965), The Avengers (1966), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Ryan's Daughter (1970), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), Frenzy (1972), Young Winston (1972), The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (episode 7, as the Vicar - 1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), The New Avengers (1977), Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), Gandhi (1982), as Dr George Bagster Phillips in Jack the Ripper (1988), Chaplin (1992) and Patriot Games (1992).

But we do remember him as the smooth-as-silk rector in the BBC sitcom classic To the Manor Born (three series, 1979-81) starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, and he also memorably donned the dog collar on TV in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin (1976), a PG Wodehouse Playhouse series (1978) and Keeping Up Appearances (1990) starring Patricia Routledge. His last screen appearance was in a Christmas special one-off episode of To the Manor Born in 2007. Keith said he was not only “enchanting”, but generous and good, as well; she had first worked with him in rep at the Thorndike theatre in Leatherhead, Surrey, in an early revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves.

Sim was born in Liverpool, the son of Stuart Sim, a first world war veteran and an employee of Barings Bank, and his wife, Ida (nee Carter). The family moved south to Croydon, and Sim was educated at Cranbrook school in Kent, and trained for the stage at Rada. He made his film debut in Roy Boulting’s Fame is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave, a thinly veiled account of Ramsay MacDonald’s rise to power, and followed his detective in Whistle Down the Wind (with Alan Bates and Hayley Mills) with a doctor in Forbes’s best film, produced by Attenborough, The L-Shaped Room (1962), with Leslie Caron and Tom Bell.

He featured in all the following Forbes films – King Rat (1965), The Wrong Box (1966), with Peter Sellers, Ralph Richardson and Tony Hancock, and The Whisperers (1967), with Edith Evans and Eric Portman – before embarking on the first of seven star-studded Attenborough films as a chaplain in Oh! What A Lovely War (1969). He had third billing, and more prominence, behind Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick, in Roy Ward Baker’s wittily adventurous horror movie Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) and was notable in two of the biggest TV series of the late 1970s, The New Avengers and Edward and Mrs Simpson. He retired early, but not before completing work on Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), which starred Ben Kingsley, and as doctors in Attenborough’s Cry Freedom (1987), with Denzel Washington as Steve Biko and Kevin Kline as the journalist Donald Woods, and in Chaplin (1992), which starred Robert Downey Jr.

Sim was married to the actor Deirdre Benner and lived happily in Hampton, on the Thames, with a fruitful garden and a dog. He loved cricket and was surprisingly keen on computers.

Deirdre predeceased him. He spent his last years in the actors’ home, Denville Hall, with his sister Sheila Sim occupying a room between those of himself and Attenborough, who died last August. The family had actively supported the home for many years.

He is survived by Sheila.

Filmography 

Fame Is the Spur (1947) – Reporter (uncredited)

Josephine and Men (1955) – Detective Sgt. Allen

The Angry Silence (1960) – Masters

Cone of Silence (1960) – Operations Room Worker (uncredited)

Whistle Down the Wind (1961) – Detective Wilcox

Flat Two (1962)

Only Two Can Play (1962) – Cigarette Thief at Party (uncredited)

The Painted Smile (1962) – Plain Clothes Policeman

The Amorous Prawn (1962) – 1st Telephone Operator

The L-Shaped Room (1962) – Doctor in Hospital

The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) – Airfield Official (uncredited)

I Could Go On Singing (1963) – Assistant Mgr. at the Palladium

Heavens Above! (1963) – Self-Service Store Manager

The Pumpkin Eater (1964) – Man at party

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) – Beedle

King Rat (1965) – Jones

The Murder Game (1965) – Larry Landstorm

The Wrong Box (1966) – First Undertaker

The Whisperers (1967) – Mr. Conrad

Our Mother's House (1967) – Bank Clerk

Nobody Runs Forever (1968) – Airport Official (uncredited)

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) – Chaplain

Strange Report (TV) (1969) – Chief Superintendent Cavanagh

The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) – Julius

Mischief (1969) – Jim

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) – Morrison

The Last Grenade (1970) – Dr. Griffiths (uncredited)

Doctor in Trouble (1970) – 1st Doctor

Ryan's Daughter (1970) – Captain

The Raging Moon (1971) – Rev. Carbett

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) – Prof. Robertson

Frenzy (1972) – Mr. Usher – Solicitor in Pub

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) – Hackett

Young Winston (1972) – Engineer

Kadoyng (1972) – Prof. Balfour

No Sex Please, We're British (1973) – Reverend Mower

The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella (1976) – 1st Lord of the Navy

A Bridge Too Far (1977) – Colonel Sims

Gandhi (1982) – Magistrate

Miss Marple (1985) – Coroner

Cry Freedom (1987) – Police Doctor

Number One Gun (1990) – Stockwell – MI5 Boss

Patriot Games (1992) – Lord Justice

Chaplin (1992) – Doctor

Shadowlands (1993) – Superintendent Registrar