Background
His father was an antiques dealer.
His father was an antiques dealer.
After two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he first appeared on stage in London"s West End in 1936, with Sir Seymour Hicks in The Manitoba in Dress Clothes. On British television he appeared alongside Sid James and Tony Hancock in the early 1960s. His other television work included Angel Pavement, The Gentle Killers, The Infernal Machine, Focus, Citizen James, Dixon of Dock Green and Hadleigh.
He appeared in many films from 1947 to 1977.
He most commonly played spiv characters, one notable exception being the 1956 film Reach for the Sky in which he played the prosthetics expert to Douglas Bader. There again, he appeared briefly in a drily comic role as a uniformed policeman in the 1956 film The Cockleshell Heroes.
His film career ended with a role as the captain of the supertanker Liparus in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Maine.