Peter Dennis
Peter Dennis (born October 25, 1933) is a Screen Actors Guild Award and Drama-Logue Award winning English film, television, stage, and voice actor. He appeared as Leslie Brough in Sideways, Sir Issac Newton in Star Trek, but is perhaps best known for his more than three decades association with performing the works of A.A. Milne on stage in his one-man show entitled “Bother!”.
Early Life
Dennis was born 'Peter John Dennis in Dorking Surrey, England the son of Michael Henry Dennis, a mechanical engineer and Violet Frances Lockwood a housewife. He was one of four children including two brothers, Michael and David, and a sister, Dorothy.
His early education was in a Roman Catholic convent. He continued his early studies in Portobello Road, London at the North Kensington Secondary School, until the age of 14. He spent the next four years training as an accountant and as a surveyor. While employed at T.S. Appleton & Son Ltd. In Shepherds Bush, he was called up for service in the British Army.
Peter Dennis served as a Sergeant in the British Army Military in Nigeria from January 1952 to March 1958, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Royal Army Service Corps. While stationed in Nigeria, his duties included drill and weapons training, shorthand writing in the service of Lieutenant General Sir Roderick McLeod and General Sir Nigel Poett, Director of Military Operations, and as a Personal Assistant to General Sir Kenneth Exham, General Officer Commanding the Royal West African Frontier Force, Nigerian Military Forces.
Upon his return to civilian life, he worked as Personal Assistant to Harry Arkle, European Managing Director, Canadian Pacific from 1958-1960 and then as Personal Assistant to Bill Nicol, Deputy Chairman of Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, Birmingham.
On his 29th birthday, Dennis saw his first play, a Birmingham Repertory Company production of Look Back in Anger at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, starring Derek Jacobi and dictated his resignation the following day. By the following fall he was in admittance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduating two years later in 1965.
He returned to Birmingham Repertory Theatre for a season, then to the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and the Liverpool Repertory Theatre.
Early Career
October 14 1976 marked the premiere of his one-man show “Bother! The Brain of Pooh” at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, given in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of “Winnie-the-Pooh” written by A. A. Milne. It contained selected readings from the When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner.
At the invitation of Anna Strasberg, Head of the Actors Studio, “Bother” received its American premier in December of 1986 at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute in Hollywood, where it was honored with the Drama-Logue Award and the L.A. Theater Award. Dennis’s one-man bravura performance of Milne’s writings would lead to hundreds of performances of “Bother!” throughout the coming decades of his career at venues throughout America and Europe from the Hollywood Bowl under the baton of conductor George Daugherty to the Palace of Westminster in London at the invitation of the Prime Minister.
Recordings
The Complete Works of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Tigger Movie, Walt Disney Records
102 Dalmations, Walt Disney Records
The Seven Deadly Sins, Jazz Suite with Phil Woods
The Children’s Suite by Phil Woods, Producer and Narrator
The Strange Affliction by Norman Corwin, with Samantha Eggar, Carl Reiner and Norman Lloyd
Awards
L. A. Weekly Theatre Award
Drama-Logue Theatre Award
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Award
Achievement of Merit Ohio State Award
Audie Award
Parents Choice Gold Award
Screen Actors Guild Ensemble Award “Sideways”