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Peter Barkworth 1929 - 2006

Born in Kent, grew up in the North of England.
On leaving school he joined RADA 1946 - 1948. Joined the Folkestone Repertory Company in 1948. Then joined the Sheffield Repertory Theatre Company for 2 years. Later taught at RADA, one of his students being Anthony Hopkins. He was also a Council member at RADA for many years.
He wrote several books on acting as well as a book on poetry and prose.
In 1977 he won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in "Professional Foul".

Obituary :

Published: 25 October 2006 The Independant, written by Anthony Hayward

Peter Wynn Barkworth, actor: born Margate, Kent 14 January 1929; died London 21 October 2006. Middle-class management roles fitted the actor Peter Barkworth like a glove. After finding fame on television as Kenneth Bligh, fighting boardroom battles in The Power Game, he dreamed up his own series, Telford's Change, starring as a hotshot international banker who seeks a less stressful life by trading in international travel and an expense account to become a provincial bank manager in Dover. The 10-part 1979 serial traced the effects this had on Mark Telford's life - and marriage, with his London-loving wife Sylvia (played by Hannah Gordon), who had her sights set on a career in show business, refusing to move. Barkworth conceived the drama in 1968 but had it rejected by ITV, who regarded it as dull. Later, he suggested it to the writer Brian Clark, producer Mark Shivas and director Barry Davis while working with them on a "Play for Today", The Country Party (1977). The result was a popular success for the BBC, achieving audiences of up to 11 million and offending no one, with even the "clean up television" campaigner Mary Whitehouse branding it "very sexy". Peter Barkworth also had a distinguished stage and film career, as well as directing, but he accepted that he would always be recognised by the public for these television roles. Looking back in 1992, he said, It's 26 years now since The Power Game was screened and 13 since Telford's Change. Yet people still associate me with them. Mind you, some do a double-take when they see me in the flesh. "Weren't you Peter Barkworth?" they say. "Still am," I reply. Born in Margate, Kent, in 1929, Barkworth moved with his family to Stockport, Cheshire, as a child and soon displayed a talent for acting. As a party piece for friends, he did an impersonation of Winston Churchill reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb", accompanied by his mother on the piano and father on the Swanee whistle. He acted in plays at Stockport School and appeared on stage aged 13 in For What We Are (1942) at the town's Hippodrome theatre. He trained at Rada in London (1946-48), later recalling that his father gave up tobacco and alcohol in order to send his son £2 15s a week "to make ends meet". He returned to teach at the school (1955-63), with students such as Anthony Hopkins and Simon Ward, and later served as a Rada council member for many years. Ward recalled Barkworth's wise advice: The moment you leave this academy and get your first job, make sure that, if you get paid £10, you save £2.50, otherwise you are going to end up in a little bedsit without a shilling to put in the gas meter. Barkworth acted in repertory theatre in Folkestone and Sheffield before making his West End début as Gaston Probert in Letter from Paris (Aldwych Theatre, 1952), following it by playing Gerald Arbuthnot in A Woman of No Importance (Savoy Theatre, 1953) and Stefan in The Dark is Light Enough (Aldwych Theatre, 1954). Like a Dove (Phoenix Theatre, 1957), in which he was Bernard Taggart-Stuart, ran for more than 1,000 performances. Barkworth also played Sir Benjamin Backbite in a revival of The School for Scandal in the West End (Haymarket Theatre, 1962) and on Broadway (Majestic Theatre, 1963). At the Haymarket in 1972, he was Edward VIII in Crown Matrimonial, Royce Ryton's play about the abdication crisis, and repeated the role when it was filmed two years later for television; he later named this his favourite part. Having first appeared on television in a live, 20-minute BBC play at Alexandra Palace back in 1948, while still studying at Rada, Barkworth made his film début as a sub-lieutenant in the comedy A Touch of Larceny (alongside James Mason, 1959), going on to appear in Where Eagles Dare (1968), Mr Smith (1976) and Escape from the Dark (1976), but it was the small screen on which he became a regular in the 1960s, often playing detectives, vicars, wing commanders and other "professional" figures. Most significant was The Power Game (1965-66, 1969), which was a spin-off from The Plane Makers, with the aerospace tycoon John Wilder (Patrick Wymark) transplanted to the boardroom of a merchant bank that takes control of the civil engineering company owned by Sir Caswell Bligh (Clifford Evans), with Barkworth as the founder's son, Kenneth. He remembered that, during the making of the series, "life became so stressful that the doctor put me on Mogadon and I became hooked for a while". In between other, one-off character roles, Barkworth played Stanley Baldwin in Winston Churchill: the wilderness years (1981), starred as Geoffrey Carr, a computer magnate raising the ransom for his kidnapped wife and stepchild, in the thriller series The Price (1985), and won both Bafta and Royal Television Society Best Actor Awards for his performance as the philosophy professor Anderson in Tom Stoppard's play Professional Foul (1977). He took a rare comedy role in the sitcom The Good Girl (1974), as the grumpy television executive Eustace Morrow, who wooed the younger, innocent Angie Botley (Julia Foster) but was dominated by his own mother (Joan Hickson). Barkworth's last film role was as the prosecutor Charles Gill in Wilde (1997), starring Stephen Fry. "I have completely retired," he assured an interviewer in 2002, and now have a lot more time for friends. I can go to the theatre without feeling jealous or thinking, "Why wasn't I offered that part?" He lived in Hampstead, north London, for more than 40 years and also had a seaside flat in Folkestone. Peter Barkworth was the author of About Acting (1980), More About Acting (1984) and The Complete About Acting (1991), based on insights gathered while he was teaching at Rada. In First Houses (1983) he recalled his early years as an actor, while For All Occasions (1997) collected poetry and prose for public speakers.

Published Monday 30 October 2006 at 15:05 by Charles Vance Stage Newspaper

It is with a deep sense of loss that one writes the obituary of one's contemporary, who had been an outstanding actor as well as a devoted friend. Peter Barkworth was born in 1929 in Margate and brought up in Cheshire during the Second World War. A consummate entertainer as a schoolboy, he was inspired by a teacher at Stockport School to consider a career in theatre. He went to RADA on a scholarship, where he graduated with distinction at the age of 19. His first engagement, in 1948, was in rep at Arthur Brough's Folkestone theatre, before going on to Sheffield Repertory Theatre. Following 18 months National Service he returned to a career that saw him make the West End stage his domain. He starred at the Phoenix Theatre for 1,100 performances in Roar Like a Dove and shot to fame with his masterly portrayal of Edward VIII in Crown Matrimonial at the Haymarket. On television, he featured regularly in the seminal boardroom drama The Power Game (1965) and won Best Actor Baftas for the television adaptation of Crown Matrimonial in 1974 and for his performances in Professional Foul and Country Party in 1977. However, his major starring role on the small screen was in Telford's Change with Hannah Gordon (1979). He returned to RADA between 1955 to 1963 to give acting lessons to such pupils as Diana Rigg and Anthony Hopkins. He also become a member of the RADA council for 16 years from 1965. During that time he wrote a number of award-winning books on his art, such as All About Acting (1980) First Houses (1983) More About Acting (1984) and The Complete About Acting (1990). He pioneered what later became a popular practice of forming a private company to launch new TV projects and selling them to the networks as complete packages. Teaming up with writer Brian Clark - author of his massive stage success Can You Hear Me At The Back - director Barry Davis and producer Mark Shivas, they formed Amstrad, which created Telford's Change and The Price as well as other blue chip television and stage dramas. By the late eighties his television appeal had started to wane but the stage still beckoned. In the nineties he starred in Simon Gray's Hidden Laughter at the Vaudeville and in The Winslow Boy at the Globe in 1994. It was during that time that he joined the board of my Folkstone Theatre Company, taking him back to the scene of his professional debut. His last film role was in Stephen Fry's Wilde in 1997. By the turn of the century, apart from his mesmerising one man show as Siegfried Sassoon at the Apollo Theatre, Hampstead and on tour, he became almost reclusive and spent these last five years at his cottage home in Hampstead, occupying his time with painting, writing and very occasionally visiting old friends in Folkestone, where he also had a home. Peter Barkworth made an astounding contribution to our profession and it was a great sadness that by virtue of his very private persona he was never to receive the honours he so richly deserved.