Sunday, July 16, 2017

Trevor Baxter obit

Obituary - Trevor Baxter, actor known for cult role in Doctor Who

 

 He was not on the list.


Actor known for cult role in Doctor Who

Born: November 18, 1932;

Died: July 16, 2017

TREVOR Baxter, who has died aged 84, was a genial actor with a lightness of touch who could be spotted in everything from TV’s Z-Cars (1968) to the big screen’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004). But it was a chance encounter with Tom Baker’s Doctor Who that gave him cult immortality.

In 1977 he was cast as one-off character Professor George Litefoot in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, one of the show’s most enduringly popular stories which is set in a Victorian London beset with deadly Chinese tongs, a giant rat and a disfigured war criminal hiding in the sewers.

Litefoot is the pathologist brought in to solve some mysterious deaths and ends up assisting the Doctor alongside theatrical impresario Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin). Jago and Litefoot made for a fine double act – Benjamin’s wonderful comedy bluster complementing Baxter’s exquisite precision – and there was talk of a spin-off.

It never happened on television, but over 40 years later Big Finish, who have produced hundreds of original Doctor Who audio adventures featuring leading actors from the show’s past, approached Baxter and Benjamin to reprise their roles. Thirteen series of Jago and Litefoot – charming comedy dramas with colourful villains, perplexing mysteries and lashings of derring-do – have been released on CD to great success, with both actors recreating their roles seamlessly.

The son of a post office worker, Trevor Baxter was brought up in Hither Green, Lewisham, and fell in love with acting at a very young age, enrolling at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art aged just 16 (after a spell at Dulwich college).

His first job was at the County Theatre in Aylesbury – the beginning of a theatrical career that took him to the Royal Shakespeare Company (1981-82, playing Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Duke Senior in As You Like it, Carlisle in Richard II, Agamemnon in Troilus and Cressida and Stanley to Alan Howard’s Richard III), the Manchester Royal Exchange (including What the Butler Saw with Kate Winslet, 1994), the Bristol Old Vic (Gayev in The Cherry Orchard 1987-88), the Donmar (The Tempest 1988-89), as Polonius to Alan Cumming’s Hamlet for the English Touring Theatre and Gloucester to Warren Mitchell’s King Lear (Hackney Empire and West Yorkshire Playhouse).

On television he played guest roles in popular shows like Public Eye (1966), The New Avengers (1976) and My Family (2006) and appeared in major series including The Barchester Chronicles (1982), Jack the Ripper (1988), Selling Hitler (1991) and The Politician’s Wife (1995).

He wrote too – several of his plays were staged, including Lies (Albery Theatre, 1975), The Undertaking (Fortune Theatre, 1979), and adaptations of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey (2003) and Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (2005). The Last Evensong (1985, directed by Jon Amiel) was broadcast on BBC1.

A born raconteur and well-read intellectual, he fitted his Jago and Litefoot recordings in between hospital visits and retained his twinkling sense of humour, zest for life and love of reading (filling his Kindle in preparation for dialysis sessions) until the end.

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1950      The Cruise of the Toytown Belle                               TV film

1961      Seven Keys        Police Constable            Uncredited

1962      Struck Off           First Doctor       TV film

1966      A Man for All Seasons   First Man             Uncredited

1978      A Most Public Affair       Witness               TV film

1979      The Life Of Henry The Fifth         Archbishop of Canterbury          TV film

1982      Nutcracker        Charlie Barker

1983      An Englishman Abroad                Pyjama Shop Manager TV film

1986      The Great White Mountain         Prior      TV film

Ping Pong            Priest in Church             

1995      Cold Comfort Farm       Sneller TV film

1997      The Hunchback               Chief Lawyer    TV film

1998      Parting Shots    Maitre d'             

2004      Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow             Dr. Jennings      

2006      Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj         Sir Wilfred Own              

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1956      Tales from Soho                              Episode: "The Rajah's Rope"

1961      Harpers West One         Compere            1 episode

Boyd Q.C.           Mr. Austin QC   Episode: "The Headmistress"

Doctor Faustus                Scholar                1 episode

Drama 61-67     Second Lieutenant Roberts       Episode: "The Face of the Enemy"

1962      BBC Sunday-Night Play               Mr. Wakley         Episode: "Six Men of Dorset"

Somerset Maugham Hour          Verity    Episode: "The Back of Beyond"

1963      Drama 61-67     Personnel Officer           Episode: "Andersen"

Lorna Doone     Visitor from London       Episode: "The Secret"

Taxi!       Doctor Episode: "The Accident"

1964      Story Parade     Leo Marchant   Episode: "The Flaw in the Crystal"

1965      The Wednesday Play     Dr. Paul Evans Episode: "The Seven O'Clock Crunch"

1966      Thirteen Against Fate    Priest    Episode: "The Witness"

Mystery and Imagination            Undertaker        Episode: "The Body Snatcher"

Public Eye          Howells               Episode: "There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth"

Adam Adamant Lives! Mr. Burke            Episode: "The Village of Evil"

1967      Beardsley           Episode: "Black Echo"

The Seven Deadly Virtues           Reverend Johnson          Episode: "The Man with Two Heads"

Boy Meets Girl Vicar     Episode: "The Raging Moon"

ITV Play of the Week      Mr. Williams      Episode: "The Small Rebellion of Jess Calvert"

Vicar     Episode: "The Voysey Inheritance"

The White Rabbit            M. Lecompte-Boynet   Episode: "The Raising Up"

1968      Z-Cars William Orchard             Episode: "Inside Information"

Mystery and Imagination            Cannon Tabard                Episode: "Feet Foremost"

1970      The Roads to Freedom                 Blythe-Hardwick            Episode: "The Reprieve"

1973      The Edwardians               Schomberg McDonnell                Episode: "Daisy"

So It Goes           Mr. Bunce           2 episodes

BBC Play of the Month Roger Garrett   Episode: "The Common"

1974      Zodiac Neville Episode: "The Cool Aquarian"

Centre Play        Mayor   Episode: "Albert and the Mayor's Tree"

1975      BBC Play of the Month Colonial Secretary         Episode: "The Apple Cart"

Thriller Winters                Episode: "Where the Action Is"

Edward the Seventh      Bishop of London           Episode: "The Boy"

Spy Trap              Gordon Beng     Episode: "With Friends Like You"

Against the Crowd          Mr. Stone            Episode: "We Are All Guilty"

1976      Lorna Doone     Baron de Whichehalse                 Miniseries

The New Avengers         Brown-Fitch      Episode: "The Eagle's Nest"

Dickens of London         Reverend Townshend   Episode: "Magic"

1977      Doctor Who       Professor Litefoot           Episode: "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"

Rough Justice   Mr. Burrowes    Miniseries

George and Mildred       The Reverend Stopes    Episode: "Jumble Pie"

1978      Rumpole of the Bailey Maurice Nooks                Episode: "Rumpole and the Heavy Brigade"

1979      George and Mildred       Oxfam Man        Episode: "Finders Keepers?"

1982      The Barchester Chronicles        Dr. Gwynne        2 episodes

1983      The Dark Side of the Sun             Dr. Phillimore   2 episodes

1984      Horizon                Professor Breene            Episode: "The Intelligence Man"

1985      Maelstrom         Dr. Albrigtsen    Miniseries

1988      Jack the Ripper                Lanyon                 Miniseries

1991      Selling Hitler     Frank Giles        Miniseries

1993      Paul Merton: The Series                              1 episode

1995      The Politician's Wife      Gordon Naylor Miniseries

2006      Doctors               Sam      Episode: "Three's a Crowd"

My Family           Lionel   Episode: "The Art of Being Susan"

 

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