Our Miss Fred

Alfred Edward Marks OBE (28 January 1921 - 1 July 1996) was a comic actor and comedian. Marks was born as Ruchel Kutchinsky in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged concerts for servicemen. He also worked as an auctioneer and engineer. He started in variety at the Kilburn Empire in 1946, and his stage appearances included The Sunshine Boys and Fiddler On The Roof. He was also involved in comedy work with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe which later led to the formation (along with writer Spike Milligan) of The Goon Show, though Marks himself was not to become a member of that comedy group. His films included The Frightened City and Scream and Scream Again. His television show, Alfred Marks Time, ran for 6 years on ITV. He compered Sunday Night at the London Palladium and appeared in numerous other television programmes including Albert and Victoria, The Good Old Days, Blankety Blank, The Marti Caine Show, The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game, Lovejoy, Minder (TV series), Parkinson, The All New Alexei Sayle Show and the Dramarama play The Comeuppance of Captain Katt (a satire on the current state of Doctor Who). In 1967 Marks toured Australia for JC Williamson Theatres in Bill Naughton's Spring & Port Wine. In 1968 he played the lead in The Young Visiters a musical version of the turn of the 20th century Daisy Ashford novel, written when she was six and published as submitted by her with the spelling error, at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. Marks also appeared in the role of Wilfred Shadbolt in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Yeomen of the Guard in 1982. While on tour in Australia, Marks was appointed the second King of Moomba (1968) by the Melbourne Moomba festival committee; when asked what his qualifications were, he quipped (in full Cockney):     "When I was eleven there were rival gangs around a fruit market in the East End. And desperately, I always wanted to be a member of the bigger rival gang. One day when I was in my best Easter suit, someone from one of the other gangs said to me 'would you like to be King of the Golden Apples?' 'All right, just sit there on this box and call out Apples, Apples, give me the Golden Apples.' Which innocently I did and they cobbled me with every rotten apple in the market." Description above from the Wikipedia article Alfred Marks, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lance Percival (born 26 July 1933, Sevenoaks, Kent) is an English actor, comedian and after-dinner speaker. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lance Percival, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Frances de la Tour is an English television, stage and film actress, known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom "Rising Damp" from 1974 until 1978; Madame Olympe Maxime in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005) and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" (2010) and Mrs. Lintott in Alan Bennett's "The History Boys". She is a Tony Award winner and three-time Olivier Award winner.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Walter Gotell (15 March 1926 – 5 May 1997) was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series. Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power. A fluent English speaker, he started in films as early as 1943, usually playing German henchmen, such as in We Dive at Dawn (1943). He began to have more established roles by the early fifties, starring in The African Queen (1951), Ice-Cold in Alex (1958), The Guns of Navarone (1961), 55 Days At Peking (1963), Lancelot and Guinevere (1963), The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965), Lord Jim (1965), Black Sunday (1977), The Boys From Brazil (1978), and Cuba (1979). Gotell won the role of KGB General Anatol Gogol in The Spy Who Loved Me for being a look-alike of the former head of Soviet secret police Lavrentiy Pavlovitch Beria. His first role in the James Bond films came in 1963, when he played the henchman Morzeny in From Russia with Love. Starting in the late 1970s, he played the recurring role of General Gogol in the James Bond series, beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. The character returned in Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987). As the Cold War developed, the role of leader of the KGB was seen to change attitudes to the West - from direct competitor to collaborator. His final appearance, as the Cold War began to become less imminent, sees him transferred to a different, more diplomatic role. Gotell is one of a few actors to have played a villain and a Bond ally in the film series (others being Joe Don Baker, Charles Gray and Richard Kiel). Throughout his career, Gotell also made numerous guest appearances in a wide array of television series. He played Chief Constable Cullen in Softly, Softly: Taskforce between 1969 and 1975. He guested in many series including Danger Man, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolf, The X-Files, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, MacGyver, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Miami Vice, Cagney and Lacey, The Saint, and many others. Description above from the Wikipedia article Walter Gotell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

John Barrard (12 September 1924 – 13 October 2013) was a British character actor.

Nancy Nevinson (26 July 1918 – 25 January 2012) was an India-born English actress. Nevinson was born in Chittagong, East Bengal, British India. Nevison worked on stage, in film and on television. She also dubbed voices for both young and old. She appeared in the films Foxhole in Cairo (1960), Light in the Piazza (1962), Mrs. Gibbons' Boys (1962), Ring of Spies (1964), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), For the Love of Ada (1972), Symptoms (1974), Jesus of Nazareth (1977), S.O.S. Titanic (1979), Le Pétomane (1979), Raise the Titanic (1980), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and Mrs Dalloway (1997). In 2001, she moved to Wokingham, to a retirement home funded by the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund especially for film- and TV-personalities. Nevinson died there on 25 January 2012, aged 93. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Thornton Ball (15 January 1921 - 16 March 2013), professionally known as Frank Thornton, was an English actor. He was known for playing Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? (1972-1985) and its sequel Grace & Favour and as Herbert "Truly" Truelove in Last of the Summer Wine.