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Versatile actor known for his TV role in The Army Game and as the producer of British film classics including If...

Best known for countless character roles in films and as the wide-boy Corporal Springer in the highly acclaimed 1950s TV series The Army Game, the actor Michael Medwin, who has died aged 96, also enjoyed success in other areas of show business across seven decades.

He began his career in the theatre and co-scripted several of the films in which he appeared, including My Sister and I (1948), Children of Chance (1949) and the musical Scrooge (1970), in which he was nephew to a Scrooge played by Albert Finney. He founded a production company, Memorial, with Finney and produced several British classics, including Lindsay Anderson’s If… (1968).

Feature Alex Westthorp 28 Mar 2014 - 07:00

In a new series, Alex talks us through the film roles of the actors who've played the Doctor. First up, William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee...

We know them best as the twelve very different incarnations of the Doctor. But all the actors who've been the star of Doctor Who, being such good all-rounders in the first place, have also had film careers. Admittedly, some CVs are more impressive than others, but this retrospective attempts to pick out some of the many worthwhile films which have starred, featured or seen a fleeting cameo by the actors who would become (or had been) the Doctor.

William Hartnell was, above all else, a film star. He is by far the most prolific film actor of the main twelve to play the Time Lord. With over 70 films to his name, summarising Hartnell's film career is difficult at best.

'Cheeky cockney' character actor who graced British screens for more than 60 years

While working on the classic Ealing comedy Hue and Cry in 1947, the actor Harry Fowler, who has died aged 85, was given sage advice by one of his co-stars, Jack Warner: "Never turn anything down … stars come and go but as a character actor, you'll work until you're 90."

Fowler took the suggestion and proved its near veracity. Between his 1942 debut as Ern in Those Kids from Town until television appearances more than 60 years later, he notched up scores of feature films and innumerable TV shows, including three years as Corporal "Flogger" Hoskins in The Army Game.

He never attained star status but created a gallery of sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as...