Ballard Berkeley

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Ballard Berkeley (born August 6, 1904 in Margate , Kent as Ballard Blascheck , † January 16, 1988 in London , England ) was a British actor.

life and career

Ballard Berkeley was born to Joseph Edward Maximilian Blascheck and his wife Beatrice Letchford Pewtress Blascheck (1872–1961). He made his theater debut in 1928, which was the beginning of a long successful, if somewhat unspectacular, career as a theater actor. He made his first film The Chinese Bungalow in 1930 in a supporting role. Berkeley would rarely get beyond supporting roles in his entire career, but he still earned a good reputation as a character actor. He played supporting roles in Noël Coward's patriotic war film In Which We Serve (1942) and in Alfred Hitchcock's crime film Die Rote Lola (1950) with Marlene Dietrich . Berkeley often embodied figures of authority such as doctors, officers, police officers and aristocrats. From the 1950s, Berkeley appeared in numerous British television series.

In the 1970s, Berkeley's career reached a late climax with the sitcom Fawlty Towers by John Cleese : he played the slightly senile, retired Major Gowen who hates Germans because of the world wars. In the radio soap opera The Archers , he lent the voice of another militarist in the character of Colonel Freddie Danby . Berkeley is also well known in Germany for the role of Sir Harry Lorradaile in the Christmas classic The Little Lord (1980). Harry doesn't say a word in the entire film, but his strange giggle is a running gag of the film. He worked as an actor until his death, so he still had a leading role in the series Fresh Fields in the 1980s and is in the comedy Help the Americans get into an accident with the Griswold family with Chevy Chase . In total, he had around 135 film and television appearances in almost 60 years.

During the Second World War, his acting career paused as he was employed by the Metropolitan Police Service as a Special Constable and was an eyewitness to the air raids on London during this time . Berkeley had children and grandchildren. He died in 1988 at the age of 83 and his last film was not released until after his death.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1930: The Chinese Bungalow
  • 1936: East Meets West
  • 1937: The Last Adventurers
  • 1939: Black Eyes
  • 1942: In Which We Serve
  • 1946: childhood love - three days of vacation ... (Quiet Weekend)
  • 1947: Convict 3312 (They Made Me a Fugitive)
  • 1949: Der Spielteufel (Third Time Lucky)
  • 1950: The Red Lola (Stage Fright)
  • 1951: The Atomic Duck (Mr. Drake's Duck)
  • 1953: In the Clutches of the Underworld (Three Steps to the Gallows)
  • 1953: The Blue Parrot
  • 1954: Robin Hood, the red avenger (The Man of Sherwood Forest)
  • 1955/1958: The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV series, 2 episodes)
  • 1956–1957: The Crime of the Century (TV series, 6 episodes)
  • 1956–1969: Dixon of Dock Green (TV series, 8 episodes)
  • 1956: Are girls allowed to love at 16? (My Teenage Daughter)
  • 1956: Jaguar packs up (Passport to Treason)
  • 1957: Night of the Demon (Night of the Demon)
  • 1958: Even More Trouble in the Navy  (Further Up the Creek)
  • 1958: Ivanhoe (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1960: Zone of Silence
  • 1965: Night Caller from Outer Space
  • 1966: United (TV series, 53 episodes)
  • 1970: Concerto for a pistol  (Concerto per pistola solista)
  • 1975–1979: Fawlty Towers (TV series, 12 episodes)
  • 1976: Confessions of a Driving Instructor
  • 1980: The Little Lord ( Little Lord Fauntleroy ; TV movie)
  • 1983: Are You Being Served? (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1983: Bullshot
  • 1984–1986: Fresh Fields (TV series, 16 episodes)
  • 1985: Help the Americans are coming (National Lampoon's European Vacation)
  • 1989: The Great Friendly Giant ( The BFG ; cartoon, voice)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ballard Berkeley | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved December 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Ballard Berkeley | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved December 23, 2017 .
  3. ^ The Longest Night: 10-11 May 1941, Voices from the London Blitz. Accessed December 23, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Berkeley, Ballard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blascheck, Ballard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film and stage actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Margate , Kent
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1988
Place of death London