CONRAD PHILLIPS

14 Jan

(13 April 1925 - 13 January 2016)

British stage actor in films from 1948 including some second feature work and a lot of television parts, the most famous of which is the title role of the William Tell series (39 episodes, 1958-59). Films in the 1960s included Circus of Horrors, Sons and Lovers, No Love for Johnnie, Murder She Said, Heavens Above!, The Shadow of the Cat, and Impact, a short revenge thriller which he also co-wrote. From the 1970s onward Phillips’s career was entirely in television: Crown Court, Heidi, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Hammer House of Horrors, Jangles, Robin of Sherwood, Emmerdale and a reboot of William Tell, called Crossbow, in which he appeared in three of the 72 episodes but not as Tell. He retired in 1991 due to painful back problems and moved to Scotland, then France and subsequently Wiltshire.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

CONRAD PHILLIPS

ALAN RICKMAN

DAVID BOWIE