Terence Edmond; Actor best known as PC Sweet in Z Cars
Hyfler/Rosner
Actor best known as PC Sweet in Z Cars
Ian Greaves
The Guardian, Tuesday 28 April 2009
Terence Edmond, who has died aged 69, was a character actor
best known as PC Sweet in the television series Z Cars. His
on-screen death attracted 17 million viewers, but major
roles in later life eluded him. The actor had initially
accepted a six-week run on Z Cars in 1962 but he stayed two
years, playing Ian Sweet, naive foil to the worldly-wise
desk sergeant, initially played by Leonard Williams. Edmond
said in 2003: "Everybody in that show had a heroic pose,
whereas I represented the beginner, and what was important
to me was that he wasn't feeble or stupid with it." But the
character did have a heroic end when, in the 100th episode,
he drowned while attempting to save a child.
Raised in Bristol, Terence Edmond Stutter (he dropped the
surname) attended Clifton college prep there and St Paul's
school, in London, before arriving at Rada in 1958, where
his contemporaries included Tom Courtenay and John Thaw.
During a stint with the Mermaid theatre in 1960, he played
Bedford in Henry V and Ludovicio in Brecht's Galileo. His TV
debut came in 1961 in The Arson Squad. That year he
auditioned for John McGrath's first TV production, of Johnny
Speight's The Compartment, but narrowly lost out to Michael
Caine. Luckily, the director remembered him when casting
what would become a landmark police drama.
Despite steady theatre work, Edmond's career after Z Cars
suffered a number of false starts. A 1967 spin-off from Blue
Peter called John Bull floundered, and Laurence Olivier's
decision to overrule Edmond's casting in a Broadway
production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead hurt him
badly.
Edmond's marriage to Carole Naylor crumbled when she began
an affair with the musician Hank Marvin and ended in divorce
in 1969. He never remarried.
A modest writing career developed, initially in radio with
Bernard Cribbins, followed by two editions of Comedy
Playhouse and a stage play, Don't Pinch the Teaspoons, in
1972. Edmond directed, too: Ayckbourn's Time and Time Again
and, later in 1978, A Christmas Carol. He also landed a
sitcom role as Ken in John Sullivan's Dear John (1986-87)
alongside Ralph Bates.
Other TV work included The Saint, The Persuaders and
Shoestring and his last screen role was in another police
series, The Bill (1994). He was also a regular on radio.
In 1999 he contracted the hospital bug pseudomonas
aeruginosa which, together with a lung disease he had
endured since childhood, proved debilitating. He suffered a
heart attack during treatment, and died a week later. His
elder brother, Anthony Stutter, survives him.
. Terence Edmond (Stutter), actor, born 22 November 1939;
died 14 March 2009