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Colin Jeavons
Born	Colin Abel Jeavons 20 October 1929 (1929-10-20) (age 80) Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales
Occupation	actor
Spouse(s)	Rosie

Colin Jeavons (born 20 October 1929 in Newport, Monmouthshire) is a Welsh character actor.

[edit] Career

Jeavons is known for his part as Max Quordlepleen in the BBC television serial of Douglas Adams' space opera comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or the part of the undertaker, Shadrack, in the television situation comedy written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from Waterhouse's novel Billy Liar. Also he was the narrator to the series "Barnaby the Bear" and sang the theme tune. Barnaby is very fondly remembered by British people of a certain generation.

Pete Stampede and Alan Hayes wrote of Jeavons in The Avengers Guest Biography page as "one of those under-rated, ever-present supporting actors who never turn in a bad performance." and as a recurring UFO-obsessed character in the Sci-fi comedy Kinvig, "frankly stole the show each and every week."^[1]

His most critically acclaimed role was as the neglected and abused child, Donald, in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills (1979). He also has featured prominently in the 1990 dramatisation for television of House of Cards by Michael Dobbs, as Tim Stamper, Tory Whip and ally of Ian Richardson's Francis Urquhart. The character returned - promoted initially to Chief Whip, then to Party Chairman - in the sequel, To Play the King. He was already a well-known character in the sixties following his role as Uriah Heep in BBC TV's television adaptation of Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. He had roles in other Dickens adaptations including The Old Curiosity Shop, Great Expectations and Bleak House.

Jeavons' acting credits are numerous and varied: In 1963 he played the extremely reluctant hero Vadassy forced into espionage in "Epitaph For a Spy" for BBC Television.^[2] He is known as a regular character actor on television classical adaptations; he hosted Play School for a time. He played "with chilling authority" in the words of writer David Stuart Davies, Professor Moriarty in The Baker Street Boys (1982), and "'with great panache'" Inspector Lestrade in the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes). Many fans of the Canon and the TV series feel Jeavons' portrayal of Inspector Lestrade is the most definitive for the character, and that Granada's The Adventure of the Six Napoleons is the clearest demonstration of the difficult, yet affectionate relationship between the two detectives. Producer Michael Cox of the Granada Television series for Sherlock Holmes stated frankly that they were given the best Lestrade of his generation.^[3]

In 1986 he acted in Paradise Postponed. In 1985, he played Adolf Hitler in Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil. He also appeared in Doctor Who in the 1966 story The Underwater Menace and the 1981 spin-off K-9 and Company; as Briggs, the lawyer who halts the marriage between Jane and Rochester in the 1983 BBC version of Jane Eyre, twice in cult TV series The Avengers and once in Adam Adamant Lives! as one of the most unusual villains on television, a murderous fashion designer.

His elder son Barney Jeavons was manager of the British rock band Reuben. In 2007 he emerged from retirement and, heavily bearded, starred as the enigmatic "General" in Reuben's pop video "Blood, Bunny, Larkhall". In the behind-the-scenes short, Jeavons explained briefly some of the highlights of his acting career.^[4]

[edit] References

1. ^ Avengers
2. ^ http://www.startrader.co.uk/Action%20TV/guide60s/epispy.htm
3. ^ Afterword written by Michael S. Cox, Cheshire, 1993, in "The Television Sherlock Holmes" by Peter Haining, revised 3rd Edition, 1994 Virgin Books
4. ^ http://www.geocities.com/jeavonscolin/

• "Starring Sherlock Holmes", David Stuart Davies; Titan Books 2001

[edit] External links

• Colin Jeavons at the Internet Movie Database
• Epitaph For a Spy
• The Avengers TV ForeverCategories: Sherlock Holmes