David Horovitch

David Horovitch

A very dependable British actor with a look somewhere between Bob Hope and Droopy, He's possibly best known as eternally on-the-wrong-track Inspector Slack in 'Agatha Christie's Miss Marple', but his lugubriously expressive style has found a place in 'The New Avengers', 'Bulman', 'Boon', 'A Touch of Frost', 'Just William', 'Drop the Dead Donkey', 'Peak Practice', 'Foyle's War' and dozens of others.

The results of sneaking up on Steed at the billiard table in 'The New Avengers'

Listening to Miss Marple explain where he went wrong yet again.

On the silver screen, he's been much less ubiquitous, but can be spotted in the Disney sequel '102 Dalmatians' (2000) as Cruella DeVile's shrink, and in the odd British-set Woody Allen movie 'Cassandra's Dream' (2007) with Ewan MacGregor and Colin Farrell.

Something a bit different in the star-studded 1983 series
'The Cleopatras' as Chickpea, one of the many Ptolemys

In a long and distinguished theatre career, including work with the RSC and Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, he's covered much of the canon, from 'Charley's Aunt', 'An Inspector Calls' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest' to Ibsen, Sheridan, and of course Shakespeare.

David Horovitch-imdb

Clifford Rose

Clifford Rose:

† Oct 24 1929 – Nov 6 2021

Neat and precise, in a sinister, ruthless sort of way, Clifford Rose will forever be associated with the role of Kessler of the Gestapo in the '70s TV drama 'Secret Army', now difficult to watch after years of gormless lampooning in 'Allo Allo'. So compelling was the character, however, that there was also a spin-off, 'Kessler' which saw him as a Nazi war-criminal businessman in South America, being hunted down by former members of the Resistance.

In 'Marat/Sade' (1967)

Before Kessler, he played a number of TV roles including Dr Snell in 'Callan' and as the ambitious journalist Quintus Slide in 'The Pallisers', as well as appearing in 'Softly Softly', 'Warship', 'Van der Valk', 'Follyfoot', 'Doctor Who' and the star-studded series of Lord Peter Wimsey stories from 1972, 'The Unpleasantness at the Ballona Club'.        

Consulting EDNA the computer in 'Callan'.
(Plus chain-smoking Peter Sallis in white coat.)

In the Tom Baker-era 'Doctor Who' story, 'Warrior's Gate'

Post-Kessler, he was seen in a steady stream of decent mid-table stuff including 'Inspector Morse', 'Minder', 'Oxford Blue', 'G.B.H' and 'Foyles War'.

His cinema credits are an interesting mix, running from 'Marat/Sade' (1967) and 'Work is a Four Letter Word' (1968), to the movie version of 'Callan' (1974), and recent stuff like 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' (2011) and the Glenn Close Thatcher pic 'The Iron Lady' (2011).  

Clifford Rose - imdb

Simon Chandler

Simon Chandler:

Another of the grey men. Simon Chandler's assured portrayals of middle-class anxiety and establishment brinkmanship seem to have led to his being cast in a long string of substantial TV roles. His longest and probably highest profile residency in a TV series has come in 'Judge John Deed' in which he plays Martin Shaw's machiavellian nemesis Sir Ian Rochester. He was also in the wry comedy 'Teachers' and played the Reverend Farebrother in the 1994 adaptation of 'Middlemarch'.   


It's a bit of a giveaway that your profile isn't as high as it could be, however, when you get cast as a number of characters over the course of a long-running series. He has been in 'The Bill' in several different one-off roles between 1992 and 2007, but more worryingly, was able to pop up in 'Doctors' in 2011 as one Elliot Taylorman, despite having appeared as semi-regular Andrew Hewitt in three different earlier storylines. The 'Doctors' audience was presumably untroubled by any confusing memory of that character.
     

In the Mel Gibson version of 'The Bounty' (1984)

As Dr Finlay in 'The Singing Detective'

More satisfying TV work has included: 'The Singing Detective', 'Brideshead Revisited', 'Bulman', 'Anglo Saxon Attitudes' and 'The Thick of It'. A glance at imdb also reveals that he has also appeared in a quite impressive collection of major feature films, ranging from 'The Bounty (1984), 'Vera Drake' (2004) and 'Perfume, The Story of a Murderer' (2006) to 'The Iron Lady' (2011), 'The King's Speech' (2010) and the voice of Merry in Ralph Bakshi's truncated and gloomy animated version of 'The Lord of the Rings' (1978). 

'Urban Gothic'

'Midsomer Murders'

Simon Chandler - imdb