John Rapley

John Rapley: 
† Apr 18 1935 – Apr 18 2016*

A ubiquitous character actor with a hangdog expression and the definitive British comb-over, usually seen representing the stolid middle-aged old-school type. Rarely given a really memorable part or much in the way of dialogue, yet he's been a stalwart of British TV since the '60s.  He pops up in fare as varied as 'Blott on the  Landscape', 'Grange Hill', 'Murder Most English', ''The Avengers', 'Colditz', and in particular, a good bit of period drama, from 'Jeeves and Wooster', 'The Onedin Line', and 'The Duchess of Duke Street' to 'David Copperfield', 'Dombey & Son', and 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes'

With a face for comedy, it's also likely that you'll see him in things like 'Black Adder', 'The New Statesman', 'Terry & June', 'Goodnight Sweetheart', as well as the Jim Broadbent flop vehicle 'The Peter Principle', and with Robert Lindsay in 'My Family'.

Fairly limited work in the cinema includes roles in 'Elephant Man' (1980), Clint Eastwood's 'White Hunter Black Heart' (1990), and the silly silk-undies romp 'Jane and the Lost City' (1987).

*Edit: Mar 31 2017. I was sorry to read recently that John Rapley passed away on his 81st birthday last year.


John Rapley - imdb

Tony Aitken

Tony Aitken:

With its permanently nervous, pinched expression, the face of actor Tony Aitken has been a small pale dot in the television firmament for some 40 years. Appearing in dozens of roles, almost always as a comically unassuming clerk, curate or scoutmaster, he is another of those semi-familiar TV fixtures. Early '70s appearances include: 'Porridge', 'Z-Cars', 'Love Thy Neighbour', and naturally, 'The Sweeney'. He gained a little more visibility by the early '80s, featuring as Norman Straightman in the hit and miss sketch show 'End of Part One' and in the not-classic 1977 TV remake of the classic film 'London Belongs to Me' (1948). He was also Fred the Postman in the TVS Saturday morning titting-about show 'No.73' where he longed in vain for the embraces of Ethel, as played by Sandi Toksvig. He was also seen as a lawyer in 'Coronation Street' during 2011's convoluted Fiz and John Fishwick machinations, and as a real-ale obsessed potential manager for the Queen Vic in 'EastEnders'.  

Tony Aitken as Fred the Postman in 'No.73' 

Despite all that, the thing you probably do know him from is playing the lute while being booted around by Rowan Atkinson in the closing credits of 'Black Adder II'. I always found the minstrel's appearance confusingly similar to Baldrick's, but that's probably just me.
         

Tony Aitken - imdb

Bob Goody

Bob Goody: 

† Apr 16 1951 – March 5 2023

The extremely lanky frame and gaunt features of actor Bob Goody first came to my attention as a marked comedy contrast to the energetically tubby Mel Smith in their kids show, 'Smith and Goody' back in 1980. The show was knockabout, but educational, trying to counteract the 'weedy kid' image of libraries and getting working class kids interested in reading books.  

His old drama school and Edinburgh Fringe pal Smith had already gained instant fame from the wildly popular 'Not The Nine O'Clock News', while Goody slid slightly into the comparative hinterlands of acting and writing – even though his CV still has some interesting high-points. There was 'Lovejoy', 'Porterhouse Blue', 'The Kenny Everett Show', and the usual soap and drama factory-circuit of the '90s an '00s: 'The Bill', 'Doctors' and a stint as drugs counselor Gavin in 'EastEnders'.                

I'm also pretty sure this is Bob Goody (orig pic Keith Morris),
although I haven't been able to find mention of him in relation
to this sleeve artwork. 'Private Practice' - Doctor Feelgood. 

He also shows up in minor roles in a couple of biggish movies; 'Flash Gordon' (1980), The Cook, the Thief his Wife and her Lover' (1989) 'The Borrowers' (1997).

I gather he has also done a fair bit of workshop theatre and a few interesting independent films.
Including a delightfully seedy turn in this one: 'Curtains' directed by Julian Barratt. It can be found among the extras on the DVD 'The Mighty Boosh on Tour: Journey of the Childmen'.

Edit Mar 2023: Very sad to hear of Bob Goody's passing.
There's a lovely YouTube video of an evening with Bob here: Bob Goody & Friends  
 
Bob Goody - imdb

Helen Fraser

Helen Fraser:

A much loved actress and a very famous face (though, inexplicably, not a household name) for British audiences, on the strength of her peerlessly frumpy fusspot, Barbara, in 'Billy Liar' (1962), numerous sitcoms, and a semi-regular role in 'The Dick Emery Show' (as the daughter of his gurgling old codger, Lampwick). Other TV roles include 'Rising Damp' (playing the bride in the episode 'The Newlyweds'), and 'The Likely Lads', carrying on into the '80s and '90s in the likes of 'Duty Free' and 'One Foot in the Grave'.      

Her biggest role in later years has been as the tough-as-old-boots prison warder Sylvia Hollamby in nearly a hundred episodes of the semi-gritty behind-bars drama, 'Bad Girls', which ran from 1999-2006. 

A character-actor star, and a suitable subject for Familiar Unknown's 100th blog post.

         

(In Roman Polanski's 1965 classic 'Repulsion', with Catherine Deneuve; and dolled up in the 1968 Harold Pinter misery-fest 'The Birthday Party')

By way of an aside – Ms Fraser met her late husband, Peter Handford, on the set of 'Billy Liar'. He was a film and television sound recordist but had a hobby/sideline in recording the sounds of steam engines. Some of his archive was released on the Argo label in the '50s and '60s in the form of 7''EPs, which I now collect.

         

Helen Fraser -imdb

Ray Brooks

Ray Brooks:

† 20 April 1939 – 9 August 2025

'As if by magic, the shop keeper appeared.'

Possibly the great tragedy of Ray Brooks's career is our impermeable national affection for the kids' TV classic 'Mr Benn', a short 1971 series of five-minute illustrated stories about a nice ordinary man who tries on fancy dress costumes and has surprising adventures. Despite Mr Brooks's good looks and mellifluous voice, he seems to have been excluded from the meatiest dramatic roles by the resonances of Festive Road. 

Perhaps not. He was solid, rather than outstanding, in a decent run of '60s TV cult faves, from 'The Power Game' and 'Emergency Ward 10' to 'Danger Man', 'The Avengers', a nice episode of 'Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)' in which he appeared as a bogus Marty Hopkirk, and as Reg in the groundbreaking Wednesday Play 'Cathy Come Home'. He also played shady young nightclub impressario Norman Phillips in 'Coronation Street' in a couple of 1963/64 beat-boom storylines. He hit the cinema screen in Michael Winner's 'Play It Cool' (1962) with Billy Fury, before graduating to oddball mod lothario Tolen in 'The Knack... And How To Get It' (1965) and Peter Cushing's dynamic assistant in 'Daleks Invasion Earth 2125' (1966).  

"The Knack… and How To Get It' (1965)

For whatever reason, the '70s and '80s seem a bit bare in comparison. He appears in 'Carry On Abroad' (1972), and the Brit schlockers 'The Flesh & Blood Show' and 'The House Of Whipcord' (1974), and on TV in a few shows of the 'Softly Softly' calibre, before lending his voiceover talents to the sub-Mr Benn antics of fairytale half-wit 'King Rollo'. In 1984 came 'Big Deal', and a starring role as seedy gambler Robbie Box, in which he finally threw off the Mr Benn millstone, but largely failed to capture the public's affection. Since then, not much. A long stint in 'EastEnders' as Pauline Fowler's love interest, Joe, ended badly when he caused her death by hitting her with a frying pan. He later fell out of a window after a fatal showdown with Dot Cotton… 

I imagine he kept the frying pan. To help him remember.                          

Ray Brooks - imdb profile

David Graham

David Graham: 

† July 11 1925 – September 20 2016

Lugubrious, skeletal actor, probably best known for his voiceover work, more specifically for being the voice of both Parker and Brains in Gerry Anderson's 'Thunderbirds', (not to mention Prof Matthew Matic in 'Fireball XL5' and Dr Beaker in 'Supercar'). This alone is obviously enough to guarantee him cult TV legend status, but he was also partly responsible for devising the voices of the Daleks in 'Dr Who' and providing them in more than 30 episodes, as well as appearances in a more dramatic vein such as the scientist Kerensky (pic above) in the Tom Baker-era story 'City Of Death'. 

On set for the early Gerry Anderson series 'Four Feather Falls'

His television roles have also included classic '60s/'70s stuff like 'The Avengers', 'The Saint', 'Danger Man', 'Till Death Us Do Part', 'Callan', 'Timeslip' and 'Ace Of Wands'. By the '80s he was still cropping up in 'When The Boat Comes In' and 'Howard's Way' and has been seen in 'The Bill', and  'Doctors'.   

As a rather sinister foreign policeman in 'Danger Man'

As befits his exalted position as the voice of Brains, he also did a fine job portraying Einstein in the dramatic segments of the 2005 BBC 'Horizon' programme 'Einstein's Unfinished Symphony'.

The admirable Parker in 'Thunderbirds', voiced unforgettably by David Graham

In the unsettling short film 'One For Sorrow' (2011)

David Graham - imdb profile 

His own website is here.

Thanks to Richard Sanderson for the nudge.

Peter Vaughan

Peter Vaughan:
† Apr 4 1923 – Dec 6 2016

A big man, and something of a giant in the realm of British TV comedy and drama. Emanating an aura of cunning and dead-eyed menace, he is part of the collective consciousness as 'genial' Harry Grout, the Mr Big of Slade Prison in the classic sitcom 'Porridge', forever asking Ronnie Barker's wily, but good-natured Fletcher to run him some little errand. When not in prison blues, he was also Cheryl's dad in 'Citizen Smith' and one of the Fox clan in the tough 1980 drama series 'Fox'.

His acting career stretches back to the mid-'50s and traces a line through most of the cult TV output of the following decades: 'The Saint', 'Adam Adamant Lives!', 'Man In A Suitcase', 'The Avengers', 'The Strange Report', and 'The Protectors'. He also lent his innate gravitas and looming presence to some lavish and heavyweight dramas, such as playing Bill Sikes in an early '60s 'Oliver Twist';  the BBC's 1967 'Great Expectations' (playing Jaggers - the late Ronald Lacey played Orlick); a memorable Long John Silver in 'Treasure Island', and the ruthlessly unprincipled Horace Dorrington in 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes'. Coming up to date, he is to be seen in stuff ranging from 'Our Friends in The North' to 'Lark Rise to Candleford' and 'Game of Thrones'.

(pictured above in 'The Avengers' episode 'My Wildest Dream'; and in 'The Gold Robbers' with a teenaged Sally Thomsett)

'Eyewitness' (1970) 

In the cinema, notable titles include: 'Village of the Damned' (1960), 'Make Mine Mink' (1960), 'The Punch and Judy Man' (1963), 'Fanatic' - aka 'Die, Die My Darling' (1965), the Boulting brothers comedy 'Rotten to the Core' (1965), 'Straw Dogs' (1971), Ken Russell's 'Savage Messiah' (1972), and Terry Gilliam's 'Time Bandits' (1981) and 'Brazil' (1985).

†Edit: Sad to hear today that the wonderful Peter Vaughan has died. Tue 6th Dec 2016.

Peter Vaughan - imdb profile