Peter Bowles

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Peter Bowles
Born	Peter John Bowles (1936-10-16)16 October 1936 London, England
Died	17 March 2022(2022-03-17) (aged 85) London, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956–2021
Spouse	Susan Bennett ​ (m. 1961)​
Children	3

Peter John Bowles (16 October 1936 – 17 March 2022)^[1] was an English screen and stage actor. He gained prominence for television dramas such as Callan: A Magnum for Schneider and I, Claudius. He is however, best remembered for his roles in sitcoms and television comedy dramas, including: Rumpole of the Bailey, Only When I Laugh, To the Manor Born, The Bounder, The Irish R.M., Lytton's Diary, Executive Stress and Perfect Scoundrels.

Bowles was born in London, England.^[2] His father was Herbert Reginald Bowles, valet-companion and chauffeur to Drogo Montagu, son of the Earl of Sandwich, then a butler to the daughter of Lord Beaverbrook. ^[3] His mother was Sarah Jane (née Harrison), from Scotland, who served as a nanny to the family of the Duke of Argyll before coming to England and working for Beaverbrook's family, which is where they met.^[3]

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Bowles's father was sent to Rolls-Royce Aero-engine factory in Hucknall, Nottingham, where the family lived in a small "two-up, two-down" house. Bowles attended the Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School, where he was taught English by the novelist Stanley Middleton, and won a scholarship to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where he won the Kendall Prize and later he became an associate.^[3]

Bowles married Susan Bennett on 8 April 1961.^[4] The couple lived in Barnes, south-west London^[5] and had three children together.

Bowles died aged 85, on 17 March 2022, from cancer.^[6][7][8][1]

Bowles began his career with the Old Vic Company in 1956 playing small parts in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida and Richard II. After a season the company toured North America, concluding with a sell-out season at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.^[9]

He then joined the Bristol Old Vic Company for a season playing character parts and taking two Shakespeare productions to the Baalbeck Festival.^[10] This led to him being offered two plays by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, London in September 1960: Dr Copperthwaite in The Happy Haven written by John McGragh and directed by Bill Gaskell,^[11] and Kirill in Platanov by Checkov, directed by George Devine, which starred Rex Harrison.

In 1961, after appearing in J.B. at the Phoenix Theatre directed by Laurier Lister in September^[12] (which closed after four weeks on the day of his wedding^[3]), he was cast in October of that year as Roger in Bonne Soupe, starring Coral Browne and directed by Eleanor Fazan at the Comedy Theatre and then Wyndhams Theatre.^[13]

Later, he was in Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends, also starring Richard Briers, at the Garrick Theatre in 1975.^[14] Then came Tom Stoppard's Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land at the Arts Theatre in 1976.^[15] (Bowles had last played there in 1963 in Anthony Powell's Afternoon Men in a cast that also included James Fox, Alan Howard and the actress and pop artist Pauline Boty). In 1980 in starred in Born in the Gardens by Peter Nichols directed by Clifford Williams first at the Bristol Old Vic and then at the Globe.^[16][17]

Bowles' first starring role in the theatre after many years of TV successes was as Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1986;^[18] he was the first actor to play the part in London since Laurence Olivier in 1957. In 1990 Bowles starred opposite Michael Gambon in Alan Ayckbourn's Man of the Moment at the Globe Theatre^[19]

The role of Vic Parkes was Bowles' first, but not last, performance as an East End gangster. After Running Late Sir Peter Hall began to offer Bowles a succession of leading roles in West End theatre, including Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables opposite Patricia Hodge.^[20] and George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara with Jemma Redgrave. George S. Kaufman's The Royal Family and Noël Coward's Hay Fever, both opposite Judi Dench at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, followed.^[21] In 1996 Bowles played Arnolphe in Molière's The School for Wives at the Piccadilly Theatre.^[22]

Another play for Hall, this time at the Theatre Royal, Bath, was Rattigan's The Browning Version. Bowles' last play for Hall was Sheridan's The Rivals in 2011,^[23] opposite Dame Penelope Keith, again at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. His other West End theatre plays include Coward's Present Laughter,^[24] Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth,^[25] Peter Nichols' Born in the Gardens,^[16] Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark^[26] and in 2004, Simon Gray's The Old Masters.^[27] directed by Harold Pinter at the Comedy Theatre.

Then again at the Haymarket Theatre in Hutchinson's The Beau, opposite Richard McCabe,^[28] and Rattigan's In Praise of Love at the Apollo Theatre.^[29] In a South Bank Show special Melvyn Bragg interviewed George MacDonald Fraser, and Bowles played the part of Fraser's hero 'Harry Flashman'. Other parts include Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion and the General in Jean Anouilh's The Waltz of the Toreadors, both at the Chichester Festival Theatre;^[30] and Judge Brack in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (translation: Frank McGuinness) opposite Francesca Annis.

Bowles played the ultimate gangster in Mellis and Scinto's Gangster No 1 at the Almeida Theatre^[31] in 1995 for which he held the film rights; he raised money from Channel 4 Films and was executive producer for the film Gangster No. 1 (2000), starring Paul Bettany.^[3][32]

His final starring role was Father Merrin in The Exorcist at the Phoenix Theatre directed by Sean Mathias.^[33]

Bowles was warned by casting directors on leaving the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) that because of his swarthy looks he would never play an Englishman.^[3] Indeed, his early career in television consisted mostly of playing villains (usually foreign) in such shows as The Avengers (Bowles featured in four series), Danger Man, The Saint, The Persuaders! and The Prisoner (as 'A' in "A. B. and C.", 1967).

Bowles played Balor ("the most evil man in the universe") in an episode of Space: 1999. He also appeared as Caractacus in the TV adaptation of I, Claudius (1976). His first major English role was Guthrie Featherstone QC MP, whom he played in many series of Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–1992), while in 1975 he played David Grant, husband of Abby Grant in the BBC series Survivors; his character died in the first episode.

After playing his first comedy role on TV (Hilary) in an episode of Rising Damp, Bowles was often seen as a comedy actor and parts in comedy series such as To the Manor Born, Only When I Laugh, The Bounder, and Executive Stress followed; however, he turned down the role of Jerry in The Good Life.

The success of To the Manor Born, playing the part of Richard DeVere (a nouveau riche millionaire supermarket owner originally from Czechoslovakia) which had audiences of over 20 million for all twenty-one episodes, changed Bowles' life. After being told by the BBC his success in comedy meant he would never work in drama again,^{[citation needed]} Bowles devised a drama series called Lytton's Diary, which he sold to ITV.

It was while starring in Lytton's Diary that he was offered the title role of Major Yeates in the television series The Irish R.M. for Channel 4. A headline in the Evening Standard after that series' success read "Bowles Saves Channel 4".

Much of Bowles' work was now being shown on American television, including PBS's Masterpiece Theatre, and he was very flattered to discover that admirers in America of his work included Stephen Sondheim, Quentin Tarantino and Marlon Brando. Following The Irish R.M., Bowles co-devised the comedy/drama series Perfect Scoundrels, which ran for three series on ITV.

In 1991, Bowles took an idea for a dramatic film to the BBC; it was accepted, and after being written and adapted by Simon Gray, became Running Late, a film in the Screen One series. This was to be Bowles' first performance on BBC Television since To the Manor Born a decade earlier. Bowles, besides starring, also co-produced with Verity Lambert. The film went on to win The Golden Gate Award in 1993 at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

From 2016 to 2019, Bowles played the recurring role of the Duke of Wellington in the award-winning ITV series Victoria.

• RADA Scholarship (1954)^[34]
• Madge Kendal Prize (1955)^{[citation needed]}
• Male Comedy Star Award (1983)^{[citation needed]}
• ITV Personality of the Year (1984)^[1]
• The Golden Gate Award (San Francisco International Film Festival, 1993)^[35]
• Hon. Doctor of Literature, for contributions to the theatre, television drama and entertainment. (Nottingham Trent University, 2002)^[1]

• Autobiography: Ask Me if I'm Happy^[36] (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
• Behind the Curtain: The Job of Acting^[37] (Oberon Masters Series, 2012)

• Peter Bowles at IMDb
• Peter Bowles biography at the BFI's Screenonline
• Selected roles in Bristol University Theatre Archive
• Peter Bowles discography at Discogs