Peter Barkworth
Overview
- Occupation Actor
- Also Music artist
- Birthdate January 14, 1929
- Birthplace Margate, England
- Died October 21, 2006 (London, England, UK)
- Character Ted Berkeley
Biography
Peter Wynn Barkworth (1929–2006) was an English actor whose career spanned stage, film and television. A scholarship took him to RADA in 1946; after early repertory in Folkestone and Sheffield he returned to teach there in the 1950s and early 1960s. He became a familiar face on British TV and won the BAFTA Best Actor award twice—first for Crown Matrimonial (1975), then for Professional Foul and The Country Party (1978). Audiences knew him as Mark Telford in Telford’s Change (1979) and from earlier work in The Power Game, The Avengers and Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors, as well as a leading role in the wartime thriller Manhunt (1970). Later credits included Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years, The Price and Late Starter. Onstage he was acclaimed as Edward VIII in Royce Ryton’s Crown Matrimonial before reprising the role for television, and he devised a one-man evening from Siegfried Sassoon.
His film work ranged from A Touch of Larceny (1959) and No Love for Johnnie (1961) through Two a Penny (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968), Patton (1970), Escape from the Dark (1976), International Velvet (1978) and Champions, ending with Wilde (1997). A longtime RADA council member, he wrote the handbook About Acting and edited For All Occasions. A devoted collector of British art, he left his paintings to the National Trust; they are displayed at Fenton House in Hampstead. Barkworth lived in Hampstead for many years and died in London of bronchopneumonia; he was survived by his partner, David Wyn Jones.
Selected films
- Touch of Larceny, A - 1960
- Avengers, The (TV-series) - 1961
- No My Darling Daughter - 1961
- No Love for Johnnie - 1961
- Tiara Tahiti - 1962
- Seven Keys - 1962
- Doctor Who (TV-series) - 1963
- Position of Trust - 1963
- Play it Cool - 1963
- Downfall - 1964
- You Must be Joking! - 1965
- Power Game, The (TV-series) - 1965
- Two a Penny - 1968
- Avengers: The Morning After (TV) - 1969
- Where Eagles Dare - 1969
- Patton - 1970
- Rasputin (TV) - 1971
- Millionairess, The - 1972
- Professional Foul, The - 1977
- Littlest Horse Thieves, The - 1977
- International Velvet - 1978
- Telford's Change (TV-series) - 1980
- Winston Churcill: The Wilderness Years (TV-series) - 1981
- Secret Adversery, The (TV) - 1982
- Champions - 1983
- London Embassy (TV-series) - 1987
- Return of Sherlock Holmes II, The (TV-series) - 1988
- Wilde - 1997
Curiosa
- He was teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and author of several books on acting.
- He was on the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
- Stockport College has a theatre named after him.