Tom Bell; Guardian obit (actor)
Hyfler/Rosner
October 6, 2006 Friday
HEADLINE: Tom Bell: Gifted and reserved actor whose roles
ranged from Bent to Prime Suspect
Tom Bell, who has died aged 73 after a short illness, was a
naturally gifted and unusually reserved leading actor who
never fulfilled the star promise of his breakthrough success
as the unpublished writer in Bryan Forbes' 1962 movie, The
L-Shaped Room. Whereas Albert Finney (Saturday Night and
Sunday Morning, 1960), Alan Bates (A Kind of Loving, 1962)
and Tom Courtenay (The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner, 1962) all went on to careers in the new British
cinema, and theatre, Bell drifted into television, where he
became a fixture in the 1970s and 80s. But although his
glory days were long gone, he never stopped working; he took
a leading role in last night's episode of Ancient Rome: The
Rise and Fall of an Empire on BBC1.
He enjoyed huge popularity in his signature role of armed
robber Frank Ross in the late 1970s TV series Out, written
by Trevor Preston and produced by Euston Films. As a
single-minded avenger, lately released from prison, he cut a
terrific swathe through the villains and bent policemen who
put him away. Tough, good-looking, uncompromising, he was
one of the great characters of British television in this
period, and he cemented his relationship with the viewing
public as the sneering Detective Sergeant Bill Otley in
Prime Suspect, for which he was nominated for a Bafta, and
as the unbending father of Clive Owen in Chancer (1990).
Bell was famous for not mincing his words, and there are
many who felt he scuppered his film career by heckling the
Duke of Edinburgh at an awards dinner shortly after his
first success. "Make us laugh, tell us a joke," he cried, to
the dismay of industry bigwigs such as John Mills and
Richard Attenborough. Very much his own man, he even managed
to get out of national service a fortnight after being
called up. And he often compelled writers to cut long
speeches with which he was loath to bore the audience.
With this week's West End revival of Martin Sherman's Bent,
it is poignant to recall Bell's performance in the original
1979 production at the Royal Court theatre, one of his rare,
later stage appearances, in which he played Horst, the
grimly saturnine companion to Ian McKellen's Max in Dachau;
the illicit sexual liaison between the two prisoners in the
stone-breaking compound brought a whole new meaning to the
phrase "getting one's rocks off". Bell's quiet, mesmeric
brand of acting was the perfect foil to McKellen's more
demonstrative emotional quivering.
The director Peter Gill, who joined the Swansea Rep when
Bell, then in his mid-20s, was the leading man, said he
represented a 1960s type before they existed. "In the
theatre, Terry Stamp was the first, but Tom Bell had a Paul
Newman quality that was rare - and still is - on the British
stage. He had allure, and it was no wonder that he soon
became the darling of the television producers of Armchair
Theatre and so on. He was a troubled, smooth-skinned
Liverpool boy, a more wholesome sort of John Lennon without
the glasses."
Bell was born into a large family, the son of a merchant
seaman he hardly knew. As a child evacuee during the war, he
lived with three different families in the Morecambe area.
He attended Euston Road secondary modern school in
Morecambe, worked on the pier as a photographer during the
holidays and later trained as an actor in Bradford with the
legendary Esme Church, whose pupils then included Robert
Stephens and Billie Whitelaw. After that, he went into
weekly rep, with a fit-up, or temporary, company in Ireland
and Britain, before becoming part of the "kitchen sink"
movement in the 1960s, firstly as Paul in the film of Arnold
Wesker's The Kitchen.
One unlikely brush with Hollywood put him off the bright
lights for good - "a total madhouse," he told this newspaper
in 1987, in a staccato style that was patently
tongue-in-cheek: "Kept trying to get me laid, brought these
girls with big tits up to my room. No way, couldn't relate
to it at all." In that same year he played Uncle Philip in a
film of Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop, exuding a livid
streak of self-righteousness that improved even on Carter's
character.
In 1978 he had come to worldwide attention as Adolf Eichmann
in the Emmy award-winning series The Holocaust, but many
viewers will also trea sure performances such as Walter
Morel in Trevor Griffiths' television adaptation of DH
Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (1981), or Jack "the Hat" McVitie
in Peter Medak's film The Krays (1990). It is the sort of
career that needs a season at the National Film Theatre to
do it justice, for Bell never gave a performance that was
not instilled with truth and a rare sort of inner beauty.
Although he did, in fact, play the Finney role in Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning in the theatre, he never envied his
friend's move to the National: "I wouldn't want to work
there," he said in 1978, "Albie climbs mountains there. I'd
rather think in terms of films. I photograph quite well."
Indeed he did.
Bell is survived by his son, Aran, from an early marriage,
and by his partner of 30 years, the costume designer Frances
Tempest, with whom he had a step-daughter, Nellie, and a
daughter, Polly. Michael Coveney
Tom Bell, actor, born August 2 1933; died October 4 2006
Bell (clockwise from above) with Helen Mirren in Prime
Suspect, Leslie Caron in The L-Shaped Room and Ian McKellen
in Bent Photographs: Donald Cooper, Allstar
Brian Watson
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:-K-dnSqD14r7LrvY...@rcn.net...
> He enjoyed huge popularity in his signature role of armed robber Frank
> Ross in the late 1970s TV series Out, written by Trevor Preston and
> produced by Euston Films. As a single-minded avenger, lately released from
> prison, he cut a terrific swathe through the villains and bent policemen
> who put him away. Tough, good-looking, uncompromising, he was one of the
> great characters of British television in this period
"Out" (not a gay reference, in case anyone was wondering) was a great TV
series.
As far as I know, it has never been re-shown despite being a huge hit at the
time.
--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."
aka Bob
magnanimously proffered:
>Bell was famous for not mincing his words, and there are
>many who felt he scuppered his film career by heckling the
>Duke of Edinburgh at an awards dinner shortly after his
>first success. "Make us laugh, tell us a joke," he cried, to
>the dismay of industry bigwigs such as John Mills and
>Richard Attenborough.
From all that I've read and seen, I'd say Prince Philip must have
taken Tom Bell's advice.
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
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Michael Rhodes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/10/07/db0702.xml
Beastie
He didn't look good in Prime Suspect this week.
I began to wonder whether it was filmed before his death or after.
aka Bob
<fire...@worldonline1.co.uk> magnanimously proffered:
Does that mean there is a new or recent series of Prime Suspect? I
sure hope so. Programmes of that calibre are few and far between.
Bob Martin
>Does that mean there is a new or recent series of Prime Suspect? I
>sure hope so. Programmes of that calibre are few and far between.
Not a series, just one 2-parter.
aka Bob
magnanimously proffered:
Better than nothing. It will eventually make it down here, so I'll
keep looking for it. Thanks.
Beastie
> sure hope so. Programmes of that calibre are few and far between.
>
If you're not watching in the UK, then, yes, there is another to come
for you.
aka Bob
<fire...@worldonline1.co.uk> magnanimously proffered:
Thanks. New Zealand usually gets these later than anyone else. I'm
just hoping that it will be picked-up by public television and not by
subscription television (SKY).