253 stories by "Richard Anthony Baker"
As the principal dancer with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Frederic Franklin formed a magical partnership with the legendary Russian ballerina Alexandra Danilova. They were seen in Tchaik…
A stalwart of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the actor and director Vincent Dowling was particularly associated with John Millington Synge's controversial play The Playboy of the Western World…
Bill Pertwee, associated with some of the funniest programmes on television and radio, died on May 27 at the age of 86. His agent, Meg Poole, said he passed away with his family around him..…
Appearing in small acting roles with many opera and ballet companies, Michael Earl enjoyed a long career until he was struck down by the MRSA superbug. After National Service, he won a place…
Before making her mark as one of the main writers of Tenko (1981-84), the BBC Television drama that attracted up to 15 million viewers, Anne Valery had enjoyed a successful career as an actr…
Michael Earl, a performer and Equity activist who appeared in small acting roles with many opera and ballet companies, died suddenly on May 9, aged 84. He worked primarily at Covent Garden, …
Arnold Peters, who played Jack Woolley in the long"running Radio 4 soap opera, The Archers, for more than 30 years, has died at the age of 87. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s di…
From tea boy to managing director at 20th Century Fox " the stuff of which legends are made, but also the true-life story of the British film producer Tim Hampton. During a cinema career mar…
At the end of a difficult time as the assistant director general of the BBC, Alan Protheroe left the Corporation in 1987, concerned at what he saw as its declining standards. In particular, …
A German Jew who moved to India, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won worldwide fame after she was awarded two Oscars for her adaptations of quintessentially English novels, A Room With a View (1985) an…
A trumpeter who could move effortlessly between classical music, pop and jazz, Derek Watkins enjoyed one achievement in particular " he was heard on all of the 23 James Bond soundtracks from…
For nearly 50 years, the actor Pat Keen took a wide range of supporting roles on television and in theatre productions staged all over Britain. At the age of 18, she was given a job...
A master of epic production, Basil Coleman directed the premieres of the Benjamin Britten operas Billy Budd (1951) and The Turn of the Screw (1954) before moving on to take charge of stellar…
Long before Kenny Everett became a television comedy star, he was the pre-eminent disc jockey of BBC radio, his programmes produced by the supportive Angela Bond, the first woman to take cha…
Lacking a formal musical education, the pianist Katharina Wolpe nonetheless won great acclaim for her performances of the Viennese classics, especially Schubert and Mozart. She was born in V…
As principal of the Italia Conti Academy, Britain's oldest theatre school, Eve Sheward not only had to ensure that her pupils received the best possible training, but was also required to de…
An actress of great grace and charm, Daphne Anderson played a central role in musical comedies and intimate revue in the 1940s and 1950s. Having taken dancing classes, she made her professio…
An expert handler of animals for television and the cinema, Pat Derby eventually denounced what she saw as cruelty in their training. A passionate advocate of animal rights, she helped to se…
A long-serving member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, John Ayldon sang all the main bass-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas in spite of his lack of a formal musical educat…
Possibly the longest working relationship in the world of jazz was that of Chris Barber and his trumpeter, Pat Halcox. They played together for no fewer than 54 years, and Halcox gave up the…
As a leading soprano with Sadler's Wells Opera and its successor, English National Opera, Ava June was a highly adaptable performer as proficient in the works of Mozart and Tchaikovsky as sh…
During a career in which she worked with such conductors as Malcolm Sargent, John Barbirolli and Adrian Boult, the contralto Sybil Michelow was one of the singers to perform Rule Britannia a…
At the age of 19, the actor and director Sybil Christopher was an extra in The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949), a film centred on a Welsh village, in which Richard Burton had his first...
Two principles governed the policies of the former chairman of Granada Television, Sir Denis Forman. For the viewers, he believed that popular programmes should be of high quality and that p…
A central figure in more than 25 pantomimes, Paul Critchlow was also a hero of the fans who flock to The Rocky Horror Show, in which he played the part of Riff Raff in a...
