Graham Crowden

Biography

The imposing Scottish character actor Graham Crowden was one of the most recognizable and reliable British screen actors who worked for over half a century. He was the third of four children of a Scottish Presbyterian classics teacher. His first job was in a tannery in Edinburgh. He joined the Royal Scots Youth Battalion in 1940, but was invalided out after being accidentally shot by his own platoon sergeant. After studies at Edinburgh Academy, he worked for the stage in 1944 as student assistant stage manager at the Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. This was followed by repertory experience in Dundee, Glasgow, Nottingham and with the Bristol Old Vic. A prolific actor at the Royal Court from the mid-1950's, and later with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Laurence Olivier's National Theatre. Tall and possessed of an incisive manner, resonant voice and larger-than-life personality, Crowden was at his best in eccentric portrayals as mad scientists or flawed men-of-the-cloth. One of his most memorable film appearances was as the maniacal chief surgeon in Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital (1982). In television, he turned down the role of Doctor Who (1963) in 1974 but later appeared in it opposite Tom Baker, who had been cast as the Doctor instead, to give the series one of its most memorably over-the-top villains. He also achieved success in later life in television comedies such as A Very Peculiar Practice (1986) and opposite Stephanie Cole in Waiting for God (1990). He continued to act until shortly before his death.