Bernard Hepton
Encyclopedia
Bernard Hepton is a British
actor
of stage
, film
and television
.
Hepton is known as a particularly versatile character actor
. He trained at Bradford Civic Theatre school under Esme Church
along with actors such as Robert Stephens
. He has extensive stage experience as an actor, under Sir Barry Jackson in addition to a spell as Artistic Director
of Birmingham Rep and Liverpool Playhouse
.
On television, he played Toby Esterhase
in the BBC
Television
adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, and George Smiley in the radio
adaptations. He also played the Kommandant in Colditz
(1972–74), and later appeared for the same production team as Albert Foiret in three seasons of Secret Army
(1977–79). Before that he made a guest appearance in an episode of the first series of Catweazle
in 1970 where he played a naturalist. Other notable performances included Thomas Cranmer
in both The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) and Elizabeth R
(1971).
He played Sam Toovey in the 1989 television adaptation of Susan Hill
's ghost story The Woman in Black.
On radio Hepton played the role of Albert, in Stranger In The Home by Alan Dapre
, also the role of The Old Man in the Corner
, the Baroness Orczy
amateur, and mostly sedentary, sleuth in the BBC
dramatizations called The Teahouse Detective (1998–2000).
His appearances in feature film have been less frequent. He made a brief appearance as Thorpey, a gangster in the classic British film Get Carter
(1971), and another small role, as Milton Goldsmith, in Voyage of the Damned
(1976).
He is a fan of the Rugby League
team Hunslet Hawks
and also played stand-off for them in the 1952/53 season, winning a Yorkshire Cup
Medal.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
of stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Hepton is known as a particularly versatile character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
. He trained at Bradford Civic Theatre school under Esme Church
Esme Church
Esme Church was a British actress and theatre director. In a long career she acted with the Old Vic Company, The Royal Shakespeare Company and on Broadway...
along with actors such as Robert Stephens
Robert Stephens
Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
. He has extensive stage experience as an actor, under Sir Barry Jackson in addition to a spell as Artistic Director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
of Birmingham Rep and Liverpool Playhouse
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
.
On television, he played Toby Esterhase
Toby Esterhase
Toby Esterhase is a fictional character in John le Carré's George Smiley spy novels including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; and Smiley's People, as well as some of the stories in The Secret Pilgrim....
in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, and George Smiley in the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
adaptations. He also played the Kommandant in Colditz
Colditz (TV series)
Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974.The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to...
(1972–74), and later appeared for the same production team as Albert Foiret in three seasons of Secret Army
Secret Army (TV series)
Secret Army is a television drama series made by the BBC and the Belgian national broadcaster BRT created by Gerard Glaister. The series chronicled the history of a Belgian resistance movement during the Second World War dedicated to returning Allied airmen, usually having been shot down by the...
(1977–79). Before that he made a guest appearance in an episode of the first series of Catweazle
Catweazle
Catweazle was a British television series, created and written by Richard Carpenter which was produced and directed by Quentin Lawrence for London Weekend Television under the LWI banner, and screened in the UK on ITV in 1970 and 1971...
in 1970 where he played a naturalist. Other notable performances included Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
in both The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) and Elizabeth R
Elizabeth R
Elizabeth R is a BBC television drama serial of six 85-minute plays starring Glenda Jackson in the title role. It was first broadcast on BBC2 from February to March 1971, through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and broadcast in America on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre.- Episodes...
(1971).
He played Sam Toovey in the 1989 television adaptation of Susan Hill
Susan Hill
Susan Hill is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, The Mist in the Mirror and I'm the King of the Castle for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971....
's ghost story The Woman in Black.
On radio Hepton played the role of Albert, in Stranger In The Home by Alan Dapre
Alan Dapre
Alan Dapré is a British writer who has successfully written for television, radio and publishers for over 20 years. He worked as a creative and originator for Ragdoll Productions for eight years, and his episodes of Brum, Boohbah and Blips are broadcast worldwide...
, also the role of The Old Man in the Corner
The Old Man in the Corner
Created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, The Old Man In the Corner was one of the earliest armchair detectives, popping up with so many others in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories....
, the Baroness Orczy
Baroness Orczy
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel...
amateur, and mostly sedentary, sleuth in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
dramatizations called The Teahouse Detective (1998–2000).
His appearances in feature film have been less frequent. He made a brief appearance as Thorpey, a gangster in the classic British film Get Carter
Get Carter
Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother in a series of unrelenting and brutal killings played out against the grim background of derelict urban housing in the city of...
(1971), and another small role, as Milton Goldsmith, in Voyage of the Damned
Voyage of the Damned
Voyage of the Damned is the title of a 1974 book written by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, which was the basis of a 1976 drama film with the same title.The story was inspired by true events concerning the fate of the MS St...
(1976).
He is a fan of the Rugby League
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
team Hunslet Hawks
Hunslet Hawks
Hunslet Hawks is a professional rugby league club based in Hunslet, West Yorkshire, England. The club, sometimes known as 'the Parksiders' after their former stadium, are currently champions of Championship One.-History:-Early years:...
and also played stand-off for them in the 1952/53 season, winning a Yorkshire Cup
Rugby league county cups
Historically, British rugby league clubs competed for the Lancashire Cup and the Yorkshire Cup, known collectively as the county cups. The leading rugby clubs in Yorkshire had played in a cup competition for several years prior to the schism of 1895...
Medal.
TV credits
- The Life of Henry V (1957)
- The Devil's Eggshell (1966)
- Great Expectations (1967)
- The Spanish Farm (1968)
- The Fosters (1969)
- Son of ManSon of Man (play)Son of Man is a television play by British playwright Dennis Potter which was directed by Gareth Davies. It premiered in The Wednesday Play slot on 19 April 1969 starring Irish actor Colin Blakely and was an alternative depiction of the last days of Jesus, leading to Potter being accused of...
(1969) - The Elusive Pimpernel (1969)
- Lord Mountdrago (1969)
- The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970)
- The Organisation (1971)
- Elizabeth RElizabeth RElizabeth R is a BBC television drama serial of six 85-minute plays starring Glenda Jackson in the title role. It was first broadcast on BBC2 from February to March 1971, through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and broadcast in America on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre.- Episodes...
(1971) - Follow the Yellow Brick RoadFollow the Yellow Brick RoadFollow the Yellow Brick Road is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in 1972 as part of BBC Two's The Sextet series of eight plays featuring the same six actors. The play is notable for its central theme of popular culture becoming the inheritor of religious scripture, which...
(1972) - ColditzColditz (TV series)Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974.The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to...
(1972) - The Adventures of Don Quixote (1973)
- A Pin to See the Peepshow (1973)
- The SquirrelsThe Squirrels (TV series)The Squirrels is a British television sitcom, written by Eric Chappell, who went on to then later create to write Yorkshire Television sitcoms Rising Damp and Only When I Laugh. It ran for 3 series and 28 episodes and was made and broadcast from 1974 to 1977 on the ITV network, by ATV...
(1974) - Sadie, It's Cold Outside (1975)
- Orde Wingate (1976)
- I, ClaudiusI, Claudius (TV series)I, Claudius is a 1976 BBC Television adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Written by Jack Pulman, it proved one of the corporation's most successful drama serials of all time...
(1976) - Secret ArmySecret Army (TV series)Secret Army is a television drama series made by the BBC and the Belgian national broadcaster BRT created by Gerard Glaister. The series chronicled the history of a Belgian resistance movement during the Second World War dedicated to returning Allied airmen, usually having been shot down by the...
(1977) - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, SpyTinker, Tailor, Soldier, SpyTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
(1979) - Blood Money (1981)
- Kessler (1981)
- An Inspector Calls (1982)
- Smiley's PeopleSmiley's PeopleSmiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carré, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy", following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy...
(1982) - Mansfield ParkMansfield Park (1983 TV serial)Mansfield Park is a 1983 British television drama serial, made by the BBC, and adapted from Jane Austen's novel of the same name, originally published in 1814. The serial was the first screen adaptation of the novel...
(1983) - Dear Box Number (1983)
- A Profile of Arthur J. Mason (1984)
- Bleak HouseBleak House (1985 TV serial)Bleak House was the second adaptation by the BBC of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The novel was adapted by Arthur Hopcraft....
(1985) - Honour, Profit & Pleasure (1985)
- The Disputation (1986)
- The Life and Loves of a She-DevilThe Life and Loves of a She-DevilThe Life and Loves of a She-Devil is a 1983 novel by British feminist author Fay Weldon about a highly unattractive woman who goes to great lengths to take revenge on her husband and his attractive lover...
(1986) - The Lady's Not for Burning (1987)
- The CharmerThe Charmer (TV series)The Charmer was a 1987 British television serial set in the 1930s, and starring Nigel Havers as Ralph Ernest Gorse, a seducing conman and murderer, Rosemary Leach as Joan Plumleigh-Bruce, the smitten victim widow and Bernard Hepton as Donald Stimpson, Plumleigh-Bruce's would-be beau, who vengefully...
(1987) - The Contract (1988)
- The Woman in BlackThe Woman in Black (film)The Woman in Black is a 1989 television drama production starring Adrian Rawlins, Bernard Hepton, David Daker and Pauline Moran. Nigel Kneale adapted it from the novel by Susan Hill and it was directed by Herbert Wise...
(1989) - A Perfect Hero (1991)
- The Old DevilsThe Old DevilsThe Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1986. The novel won the Booker Prize. It was adapted for television by Andrew Davies for the BBC in 1992, starring John Stride, Bernard Hepton, James Grout and Ray Smith...
(1992) - Dandelion DeadDandelion DeadDandelion Dead is the title of a British TV mini-series produced in 1994, telling the true story of Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a practising solicitor in the provincial town of Hay-on-Wye, Wales, who was convicted and hanged in May 1922 for the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of a fellow...
(1994) - EmmaEmma (1996 TV film)Jane Austen's novel Emma was adapted for British television in 1996, directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and dramatised by Andrew Davies, the same year as Miramax's film adaptation of Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow....
(1996) - Midsomer MurdersMidsomer MurdersMidsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...
(1998)
Filmography
- Get CarterGet CarterGet Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother in a series of unrelenting and brutal killings played out against the grim background of derelict urban housing in the city of...
(1971) - Henry VIII and His Six WivesHenry VIII and His Six WivesHenry VIII and His Six Wives is a 1972 film version of the famous BBC television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, it was written by Ian Thorne and directed by Waris Hussein.-Description:...
(1972) - Barry LyndonBarry LyndonBarry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
(1975) - The Voyage of the Damned (1976)
- GandhiGandhi (film)Gandhi is a 1982 biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. The film was directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. They both...
(1982) - The Holcroft CovenantThe Holcroft Covenant (film)The Holcroft Covenant is a 1985 film based on the Robert Ludlum novel The Holcroft Covenant. The film starred Michael Caine and was directed by John Frankenheimer...
(1985) - ShadeyShadeyShadey is a 1985 British comedy film directed by Philip Saville and starring Antony Sher, Billie Whitelaw and Patrick Macnee. A man with clairvoyant qualities is recruited by British intelligence for a secret mission.-Cast:* Antony Sher - Oliver Shadey...
(1985) - Stealing HeavenStealing HeavenStealing Heaven is a 1988 film, a costume drama based on the French 12th century medieval romance of Peter Abelard and Héloïse and on a historical novel by Marion Meade...
(1988)