Kenneth Cope

Kenneth Cope:

† Apr 14 1931 – Sep 11 2024

'Jeff! Wake up, Jeff!'

I'm including Kenneth Cope on here, although I'm aware that to a lot of TV viewers who are British and over 40, he's probably a bit of a star. For you youngsters and non-UK types, lovable rogues are a speciality of this popular Liverpudlian actor. His knack for combining cheeky confidence and nervous agitation has stood him in good stead in roles that have made him a UK cult favourite and a primetime perennial. Playing the ghostly Marty Hopkirk in the unique '60s detective show 'Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)' imprinted his face on the British psyche forever – an immaculate mod-suited spirit with childish emotions tempered by deadpan humour. He was the perfect foil to hard-boiled, two-fisted investigator Jeff Randall, as played by the late Mike Pratt.   

                   



As superstitious property developer Jack Victor in 'Catweazle'

Before that, he'd made a bit of a splash as the likeable petty villain Jed Stone in 'Coronation Street' in the very early days of the series, appearing first in 1961 and making comebacks in 1966 and 2008. That was followed by a period on the legendary satirical series 'That Was The Week That Was', which further ensured his '60s credentials. Other cult TV connections are 'Catweazle' ('Touch not the Wogle Stone...'), 'Doctor Who' (Tom Baker era story 'Warrior's Gate'), and two episodes of 'The Avengers' in 1967 and '68. The '80s and beyond  saw him much in demand for the likes of 'Minder', 'Bergerac', 'Lovejoy' etc, and a stint on 'Brookside'.   



In the Small Faces pop/crime caper 'Dateline Diamonds' (1965) 

 

As shop steward Vic Spanner in 'Carry On at Your Convenience' (1971)

In 'Miss Marple Investigates'

His movie roles include a bunch of late-'50s teen b-pictures and swinging '60s efforts where his Beatle-esque accent (often accompanied by a Beatle-esque wig) was a bonus. See for example: 'Naked Fury' (1959), the Tony Newley vehicle 'The Lady Is A Square' (1959), 'Jungle Street' (1960), 'The Criminal' (1960) with Stanley Baker, Joseph Losey's 'The Damned' (1963), and playing the Small Faces' manager in the pirate radio heist movie 'Dateline Diamonds' (1965). Later would come a string of 'Carry Ons' ('...Dick','... Matron' and '...At Your Convenience'), and the inevitable saucy comedies 'She'll Follow You Anywhere' (1971), 'Rentadick (1972) and the movie version of 'George and Mildred' (1975). 



Kenneth Cope-imdb

Veronica Doran

Veronica Doran:

Back in 1983, Veronica Doran's character, Marion Willis, was part of several key storylines in the ever-popular UK soap, 'Coronation Street'. Engaged to be married to lovable dustbin man Eddie Yeats, and caught in the battle of wills between her floozy flatmate Suzi Birchall and their fading femme-fatale landlady Elsie Tanner, she led 15 million viewers on a rollercoaster ride through rough-diamond romance and backstreet bitch-fests.

In the film version of TV's 'For The Love Of Ada' (1972)

But apart from that little twinkle in the prime-time firmament, she has tended to blend a little into the background in a string of mousy comedy and dramatic roles in popular shows like: 'The Liver Birds', 'Man About the House', 'Crown Court', 'Upstairs Downstairs' and 'The Pallisers'.

Longer stints include a recurring part in the Thora Hird comedy 'In Loving Memory', as Cynthia, bigamous bride of the hapless Billy (see Christopher Beeny, Colin Farrell). She was also in the hardly-remembered nostalgic comedy 'Funny Man', with veteran comic Jimmy Jewel as
head of a music-hall family in the '20s.                  

As Marion, the future Mrs Eddie Yeats in 'Coronation Street' circa 1983

A rather regrettable scene from 'Escort Girls' (1975)

Movie-wise, she was in the enjoyably 'groovy' Tigon gorefest 'Horror House' (1969) with Frankie Avalon, and the movie spin-off of the Irene Handl series, 'For the Love of Ada' (1972), before popping up in a couple of lame '70s smutbombs 'Escort Girls' (1975 - see also David Dixon) and 'Sex Thief' (1974 - see also Diane Keen).
   
Veronica Doran-imdb

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

Peter Blake

Peter Blake: 

† Dec 8 1948 – Jul 21 2018

The tall dark and handsome type, from the same shelf as Paul Nicholas and David Essex perhaps, but not destined for top billing. Peter Blake is probably most remembered as the insufferably cocky Kirk St Moritz in the lonely hearts sitcom 'Dear John' with Ralph Bates and Belinda Lang. I seem to remember it being a genuinely jaw-dropping plot twist when Kirk was revealed to be the alter-ego of a timid sad-sack who lived with his elderly mother at the end of the series.
   

Other solid TV credits include 'Minder', 'The Professionals', 'Shoestring', 'Out', 'Bergerac', 'Agony' (as sleazy DJ Andy Evol), 'A Very Peculiar Practice' and a short stint in 'EastEnders' in 2010, playing Peggy Mitchell's love interest Ken Tate.
 

With Belinda Lang and the late Ralph Bates in 'Dear John'

With Barabara Windsor in 'EastEnders'

After drama school he started out in trendy stage productions like 'Jesus Christ Superstar', 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat' and 'Rocky Horror', while snagging TV extra roles and working as a stage manager in Soho strip clubs. Perhaps his contacts there led to his first film part in the sex comedy 'Intimate Games' (1976) a typical affair with the usual mix of goose-pimpled dollybirds and veteran character actors (in this case, Mary Millington meets George Baker, Hugh Lloyd, Queenie Watts, and Johnny Vyvyan).   

Probably seeing some bosoms in 'Intimate Games' (1976)

In the forgotten office sitcom, 'Fiddlers Three'. A re-jigged version of 'The Squirrels'

An interesting aside: He was Eddie, the rock'n'roll revival Pepsi drinker in their successful '70s advertising campaign. Like this one.   

There was even a spin-off single… here's his performance on 'Top of the Pops'… Lipsmackin'


Peter Blake - imdb

Yvonne Romain

Yvonne Romain:

The delightful Ms Romain (billed as Yvonne Warren pre-1960) appeared in a number of mid-fifties to mid-sixties movies and TV shows, impressively handling 'icy and sophisticated' as easily as 'sultry and sensual'. Sadly, there are few classics among them, with Hammer's 'The Curse of the Werewolf' (1961) probably the best known. Her character doesn't live to see her son grow up into the werewolf (played by a young Oliver Reed) but the marketing appeal of her curvy figure ensures that she is shown cowering from his fangs on all the publicity material anyway.   

A young Ollie Reed prefiguring the middle-aged Ollie Reed
in 'Curse of the Werewolf' (1961).  

She's teamed up with Oliver Reed again in 'The Night Creatures' (1962) a retelling of the Dr Syn/Vicar of Dymchurch smuggling yarn starring Peter Cushing and Patrick Allen. Other interesting cinema parts include the Boris Karloff drug-addict/bodysnatcher shocker 'Corridors of Blood' (1958), Melina the lion-tamer in Circus of Horrors' (1960), b-movie fare like 'Devil Doll' (1964), the Ann-Margaret permissive society comedy 'The Swinger (1966). And then of course, there's the even-worse-than-usual Elvis Presley movie 'Double Trouble' (1967) with a rapidly declining Elvis involved in some silly European skullduggery.     
  

In the Peter Vaughan insurance mystery 'Smokescreen' (1965)

Twistin' in the shlocky ventriloquist horror 'Devil Doll' (1964)

On TV she shows up in 'Danger Man', 'Top Secret' and 'The Saint', but she fades from the screen after that making a last brief movie appearance as the corpse in the star-studded 'The Last of Sheila' in 1973.

Just about to be mauled by a lion in 'Circus of Horrors' (1960)

She's married to the Oscar-winning composer and lyricist Leslie Bricusse, so perhaps appearing in these lack-lustre productions lost its appeal. In some ways it's a shame, because she came perilously close to stardom - who knows what the rest of the '70s and '80s could have had in store if she's carried on acting.   

Yvonne Romain-imdb

Diane Langton

Diane Langton:

† May 31 1947 – Jan 15 2025
A successful belter of stage musicals who has made a few forays into TV and movie roles since the early '70s. She was in a few moderately saucy movies during the depressing drizzly decline of the old school British cinema industry: 'Confessions of a Pop Performer' (1975), 'Carry On England' (1976), and one slightly surprisingly example of its renewal, 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover' (1989).

With Linda Regan (right) as the Climax Sisters in
'Confessions of a Pop Performer' (1975)  

As Private Easy in 'Carry On England' (1976)

 On the small screen, she's been in the 'Carry On Laughing' TV spin-off, as a sort of ersatz Barbara Windsor, 'Only Fools and Horses' as Del's old flame June, and in the revival of 'The Rag Trade' in the '70s. She's also had some regular drama roles, in 'Heartbeat', 'EastEnders' and 'Hollyoaks', for instance. 

As Ruby Rowan in 'Heartbeat'

Diane Langton-imdb

John Flanagan

John Flanagan:

Firm of jaw and steely of eye, John Flanagan has played a lot of coppers in his acting career. He had his own series in the early '70s, 'Parkin's Patch' in which he played keen young PC Moss Parkin, but he also pounded the beat in 'The Sweeney' (as DS Matt Matthews), 'Softly Softly: Task Force', 'The Bill', 'Casualty' and films including 'The Naked Civil Servant' (1975) and 'The Medusa Touch' (1978).  

In Alan Plater's 1973 TV play, 'The Land of Green Ginger'

Rather older and more serious in 'Inspector Wycliffe Mysteries'

I enjoyed the Play for Today from 1973 that he stars in with Gwen Taylor – Alan Plater's 'The Land of Green Ginger'. It's a real period piece, but can be found in its entirety on YouTube: Click here.  

He's also in Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' (1985), but I had play around with the pause button to find him.

 
John Flanagan - imdb