Fern was inundated with fans paying their respects to Tony, who was known for starring in films including Operation Amsterdam and The Nearly Man. Fern uploaded a photo of Ruth sitting down in an armchair with her rms folded as she paid tribute. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights. Fern Britton shared a tribute to her famous father on Twitter, as she told her followers he had died this morning. His second big leading role, at the Edinburgh festival of the same year, and on tour, was opposite Cathleen Nesbitt in The Player King by Christopher Hassall, a lyricist for Ivor Novello’s musicals. Express. Britton, as Toby Latimer, was a Harley Street consultant, while Havers as his son, Tom, was an idealist and over-worked NHS GP; both had split up from their respective wives and they end up sharing a home. Britton and Edward de Souza were judge and jury bailiff in a distinctly underwhelming occasion, a real trial to be sure. Tony has appeared in many great hit films from the 1950s onwards including Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Day of the Jackal. Father and son frequently argue about politics and medical practices.

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Invalid Date, FERN Britton's actor and director dad Tony has died aged 95. He was a member of the Garrick, Surrey cricket club and the MCC. His first two starring roles for British Lion – as a posh criminal in The Birthday Present (1957) with Sylvia Syms and as a surgeon covering for a fatal mishap in Behind the Mask (1958) with Michael Redgrave – were virtually his last as the British movie industry was transformed with the new wave of working-class subjects and actors.

He married Ruth Hawkins in 1948. He also worked for an estate agents and in an aircraft factor before enjoying a career in theatre, performing a the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. They divorced, and in 1962 he married the Danish portrait sculptor Eva Birkefeldt; she died in 2008. The Chichester Festival theatre was a natural habitat for him.
In the 1987 season, he directed Wilde’s An Ideal Husband with Clive Francis and Joanna Lumley, and played – though not with the tortured brilliance of Paul Scofield – Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, with Roy Kinnear as the Common Man. “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com: accessed ), memorial page for Tony Britton (9 Jun 1924–22 Dec 2019), Find a Grave Memorial no. Britton then consolidated his place in the sitcom firmament with Don’t Wait Up (1983-90), about a tricky father-and-son relationship, with serious moral and political overtones, co-starring Nigel Havers. The actor went on to marry again and had a son, actor Jasper Britton, with wife Eva Castle Britton. He was still touring into his mid-80s, playing Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest in 2007. Fern Britton on Phil Vickery: 'We haven’t seen much of each other', Fern Britton announced her father's death on Twitter, Fern Britton inundated with support as she reveals heartbreaking news, Tony Britton starred in many films and TV shows, Fern Britton is the daughter of Tony Britton, Claudine Auger dead: First French Bond Girl dies aged 78, Martin Peters dead: West Ham hero and World Cup winner passes away, Fern Britton: I am still weeping a year after losing my mum, Kenny Lynch dead: How did Kenny Lynch die? Tony Britton, the British actor who starred in the popular sitcoms Don’t Wait Up and Robin’s Nest, has died aged 95. Registered in England No. Britton’s polish and class were suddenly surplus to requirements. The show, in which Liz Robertson co-starred as Eliza Doolittle, settled at the Adelphi in the West End for a decent run. From 1983 to 1990, Tony starred alongside Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan in the BBC sitcom, DOn’t Wait Up. The former This Morning presenter uploaded a picture of Tony Britton, calling him a “charmer”. In the next decade, his pre-eminence on television was matched in three West End hits: starring with Cicely Courtneidge and Moira Lister in Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s mechanically ingenious farce of swapped apartments, Move Over Mrs Markham (1972); alongside Anna Neagle and Thora Hird in the musical No, No, Nanette at Drury Lane in 1973; and, in 1974, opposite a formidable Celia Johnson, as the invading Nazi commander on the Channel Islands in William Douglas Home’s The Dame of Sark at Wyndham’s. The scripts were by the actor George Layton who had chipped in as a writer to several later episodes of Robin’s Nest.

His big break came in 1952 when he played the juvenile lead, the pharaoh Ramases, in Christopher Fry’s The Firstborn, about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, at the Winter Garden in London in 1952. Both mother and father to me. As a slightly less irascible version of Rex Harrison, he toured for two years in 1964 as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, repeating the role 10 years later in a touring revival by Cameron Mackintosh that was the first such commercial venture underpinned with money from the Arts Council. After a lengthy postwar apprenticeship in repertory theatre, he achieved fame in 1955 with one highly acclaimed live television production of Romeo and Juliet in which he co-starred with another who was to become a screen star of the day, Virginia McKenna. He signed a seven-year contract with British Lion Films and rapidly became acclimatised to the glamorous accoutrements of movie fame including the generous salary, being. This was exactly the time when Britton reinvented himself as a television favourite, first in Arthur Hopcraft’s comic imbroglio of Westminster politics, The Nearly Man (1975), with Wilfred Pickles and Ann Firbank, and then, decisively, in Robin’s Nest (1977-81), beautifully and edgily written by Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer. He was now becoming established, and returned to the West End in Michael Burn’s The Night of the Ball (1955) in a cast, directed by Joseph Losey, which included Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper and Thelma Holt; and in the Louis Jourdan role in Gigi (1956, before the film) with Leslie Caron, directed by Peter Hall. Robin lived “in sin” with his girlfriend, Victoria (Tessa Wyatt), James’s daughter; James in turn disapproved of the relationship, while contending with the incursions of his own former wife, played by Honor Blackman and, later on, Barbara Murray. Tony and his first wife, Ruth, had two children together, presenter Fern and scriptwriter Cherry. He appeared in a variety of films (including The Day of the Jackal) and television sitcoms (including Don't Wait Up and Robin's Nest).. 205632690, ; Maintained by Find A Grave Burial Details Unknown. Robin’s Nest was the first common-law marital sitcom, with Britton as James Nicholls, business partner of Richard O’Sullivan’s aspirational chef, Robin Tripp (whose “nest” was his Fulham bistro).

Tony as born in Birmingham and served during the Second World War in the army. Something similar happened in the theatre, but Britton could adapt more easily, playing Trigorin in The Seagull and Hotspur in Henry IV Part 1 at the Old Vic in 1961 and, after touring with My Fair Lady, partnering Margaret Leighton in the Guys and Dolls writer Abe Burrows’s Cactus Flower at the Lyric in 1967, and Margaret Lockwood in Somerset Maugham’s Lady Frederick at the Vaudeville in 1970. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. “Funny, ferocious, and a woman once met, you couldn’t forget. Please, Tony Britton, centre, with Richard O’Sullivan and Tessa Wyatt in sitcom Robin’s Nest, in which he starred from 1977 to 1981. An army sergeant WW2, beauty queen, teacher, and all woman.”. Great actor, director and charmer. His last West End appearance, at the Haymarket, was in Jeffrey Archer’s The Accused (2000) in which the audience voted on the accused’s culpability, though it was Archer himself whom the critics placed in the dock. So brave and uncomplaining. Six feet tall, athletically Tony Britton's son is offering a reward for the late actor's signet ring which 'went missing' while he was in hospital. One person said: “So sorry to hear of your loss My thoughts and prayers are with you xxxx.”, Another wrote: “Sorry for your loss, my thoughts are with you on this sad day xxx.”, A third said: “I remember him fondly from Robin’s Nest where he played the father in law Mr Nicholls. A professional debut followed in 1942 when he appeared in Esther McCracken’s Quiet Weekend at the Knightstone Pavilion in the seaside town.

He was educated at Edgbaston Collegiate school and, when the family moved to the west country, Thornbury grammar school (now Marlwood school), in Alveston, Gloucestershire. Last year, Fern revealed her mum, Ruth, had died at the age of 94. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. Especially the episode where a German character kept saying ‘I vant to see Herr Nicholls!’ Rest in Peace Tony xx.”. He is the father of presenter Fern Britton, scriptwriter Cherry Britton and actor Jasper Britton The situation was further aggravated by Dinah Sheridan (Toby’s ex and Tom’s mother) popping in from time to time. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. On leaving school, he joined two amateur drama companies in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, while articled to an estate agent and then working in an aircraft factory. Tony Britton obituary Stage and screen actor who was a West End stalwart, became a film star in the 1950s and then a TV sitcom favourite in the 70s and 80s Tony Britton dies aged 95 Surprisingly, perhaps, given his debonair image, Britton was born in a room above the Trocadero pub in Temple Street, Birmingham, the son of Doris (nee Jones) and Edward Britton. Britton’s many enthusiasms included golf, gardening, wine and photography. Six feet tall, athletically built, he was flawlessly handsome and possessed a polished virility that made him the ideal romantic hero in period and modern roles. He had thought of doing nothing else except acting, he said, since childhood.


She wrote: “My Mum. For a brief but heady spell Tony Britton was the supreme matinee idol of the 1960s whose timely career thrived when this country still had a film industry to call its own.

894646. She said: “Our father, Tony Britton, died early this morning. Tony Britton dead: Fern Britton pays tribute to her 'charmer’ dad who has died aged 95 TONY BRITTON has died at the age of 95, his daughter, Fern Britton, has … Britton is survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Cherry, a scriptwriter, and Fern, a TV presenter, and by a son, Jasper, an actor, from his second. Vikings season 6 spoilers: Ubbe set for surprise death in Ivar hunt. The presenter continued: “24.1.24 / 17.4.18. Please, The subscription details associated with this account need to be updated. order back issues and use the historic Daily Express Cause of death revealed, Kym Marsh: Coronation Street star 'in tears' after message about son. See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, She announced the sad news on Twitter, where she called her “brave” and “funny”.