Anton Rodgers Totally Explained

Everything about Anton Rodgers totally explained

Anton Rodgers (10 January 1933 – 1 December 2007) was an English actor and occasional director, best known for his appearances in television sitcoms.
   His early education was at Westminster School. Later he was educated at the Italia Conti Academy and LAMDA. He appeared on stage from the age of 14. He was well known for his television performances, specifically his long-running roles in the television sitcoms Fresh Fields in the 1980s and May to December from 1989 to 1994.
   However, he also had a long career as an actor on both stage and film, with his stage roles ranging from contemporary comedy and satirical farce to Restoration comedy, Ibsen, Shaw and Wilde, and Peter Nichols. He appeared in films such as The Fourth Protocol (1987) and Scrooge (1970) (in which he performed the Academy Award-nominated Best Original Song "Thank You Very Much" while dancing on Scrooge's coffin). He also narrated the children's animated TV series Old Bear Stories.
   Rodgers' second wife was the actress Elizabeth Garvie, whom he met while filming the 1982 drama series, Something in Disguise. They often appeared on stage together, and toured giving readings from the works of Jane Austen and Robert Browning, among others.

Theatre

Anton Rodgers made his first West End appearance in 1947, aged 14, in Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He followed this in 1948 with a tour of an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations playing Pip, and the title role in a revival of Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy which toured the UK in 1949. After repertory experience at Birmingham, Northampton and Hornchurch, he trained at LAMDA.
Returning to London in November 1957 he joined the cast of The Boy Friend at Wyndham's Theatre. Thereafter his credits include:

Fingers in The Crooked Mile, Cambridge Theatre, September 1959
Appeared in the revue And Another Thing, Fortune Theatre, October 1960
Appeared in the revue Twists, Arts Theatre, February 1962; and Edinburgh Festival, August 1962
Withers and Tim in John Osborne's double-bill, Plays for England, Royal Court, July 1962
He was a member of the original cast of the musical Pickwick, in which he played Mr Jingle, Saville Theatre July 1963; makng his New York debut in he same role at the 46th Street Theatre, October 1965
Felix in The Owl and the Pussycat, Criterion Theatre, February 1966
Chichester Festival season 1967: Francis Archer in The Beaux Stratagem; Randall Utterword in Heartbreak House; and Fadinard in the Labiche farce An Italian Straw Hat
Title role in Henry V, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, March 1968
Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, University Theatre, Manchester, 1968
Directed A Piece of Cake and Grass Roots at Leatherhead, 1968
Devised and co-directed We Who Are About To... with George Melly at Hampstead Theatre, February 1969; eight one-act plays presented in a modified form as Mixed Doubles at the Comedy Theatre, April 1969
Dr Stockman in An Enemy of the People, Harrogate, August 1969
Directed The Fantasticks, Hampstead, May 1970, and took this production and The Rainmaker to the Ibiza Festival
Directed The Roses of Eyam and The Taming of the Shrew at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter, 1970
Gerald in The Formation Dancers, Hampstead Theatre, January 1971
Frank in Forget-Me-Not Lane (Peter Nichols), Greenwich Theatre, then Apollo Theatre, April 1971
Macheath in The Threepenny Opera, Stratford Festival, Ontario. 1972
Dr Rank in A Doll's House], Criterion Theatre, February 1973
Hildy Johnson in The Front Page. National Theatre production touring Australia, 1974
Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Greenwich Theatre, February 1975
Directed Death of a Salesman, Oxford Playhouse, October1975
Astrov in Uncle Vanya, Oxford Playhouse, December 1975
Jack Manningham in Gaslight, Criterion Theatre, March 1976
Directed Are You Now or Have You Ever Been...?, Bush Theatre, June 1977
Directed Flashpoint, New End Theatre, December 1978; Mayfair Theatre, February 1979
Leading role in the 'musical entertainment' Songbook, Globe Theatre, July 1979
Jim in Passion Play (Peter Nichols), RSC Aldwych Theatre, January 1981
Walter Burns in Windy City, Victoria Palace, July 1982
Richard de Beauchamp in Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw), National Theatre Olivier, February 1984
Tudor Phillips in Some Singing Blood, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, March 1992
Gerry Stratton in Time of My Life (Alan Ayckbourn), Vaudeville Theatre, August 1993
Dr Feldman in Duet for One revival (Tom Kempinski), Riverside Studios. May 1996
Etienne in Under the Doctor, Comedy Theatre. February 2001
Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, London Palladium, April 2002

Selected filmography

Rotten to the Core (1965)

Scrooge (1970)

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

Impromptu (1989)

Son of the Pink Panther (1993)

Television

The Old Curiosity Shop as Dick Swiveller

Danger Man as Attala

Man in a Suitcase as Max Stein

The Prisoner episode "The Schizoid Man" as Number Two.

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episode 16 When the Spirit Moves You as Calvin Bream

The Elusive Pimpernel (1969) as Sir Percy Blakeney

Upstairs, Downstairs: The Mistress and the Maids as Scone

Jason King as Philippe de Brion

The Duchess of Duke Street: A Test of Love as Newdigate

Murder Most English as Detective Inspector Purbright

Rumpole of the Bailey: Rumpole and the Honourable Member as Ken Aspen

Lillie as Edward Langtry

Fresh Fields as William Fields

French Fields as William Fields

Noah's Ark as Noah Kirby

Disraeli as Bentinck

Zodiac as David Gradley

After the War as Samuel Jordan

May to December as Alec Callender

Midsomer Murders: Market for Murder as Lord James Chetwood

Longford (2006) as William WhitelawFurther Information

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