Thomas H Coll was born on the 28th of January, 1938 in Liverpool and had an acting career that spanned over thirty years under the name Christopher Coll. His first appearance on TV was in the movie 'The Boy Who Carried a Torch' (1960), then 3 individual roles followed until he was in 5 episodes of Britain's first medical soap, 'Emergency Ward 10' (1962) as Donald Pearse. Further roles in 'Maigret' (1962), 'The Avengers' (1963), 'The Big Noise' (1964) and 'Public Eye' (1965) led to a lengthy stint in the twice-weekly saga of life at Second Division football club Brentwich in 'United' (1965-66). Here he played in 34 episodes as Dave Rockway, with the genuine action coming from Stoke City, where actual games were filmed. That was fine, but when the actors took control it all became farcical. After appearing in 'Man in a Suitcase' (1967), his next major part was in 'Z-Cars' (1967-68) when he played D.C. Kane, followed by two stories in 'Doctor Who' (1969-72) appearing as Phipps in 'The Seeds of Death' and then as Stubbs in 'The Mutants'. Then came 4 episodes of 'Warship' (1973) when he played Lieutenant Boswall and then in all 6 episodes of the series 'Sam and the River' (1975). In 1978 he appeared in the first series of 'Grange Hill' as Mr Malcolm, a quite lenient teacher, although he did ban Tucker and Benny for three weeks from swimming.
 |
| In Man in a Suitcase |
It was however in 'Coronation Street' that he had his biggest role. He had first
appeared as Roy
Carlin, a salesman at Grimethorpe's TV shop in November 1971 and then as
the Newton
& Ridley rep Barry Goodwin in May 1978. However he
returned to the show four years later as Mavis Riley's beau, Victor
Pendlebury, a role he played until 1992. Victor worked in the housing
department at Weatherfield Town Hall and was obsessed with Mavis,
reappearing every so often with a fresh plot to split her and Derek
Wilton up.
Having worked
extensively on stage in various theatres across the country, it was his
television work that he was best known for which included, 'Follyfoot' (1971), 'To Encourage The Others' (1972), 'The Flaxton Boys' (1973), 'The Naked Civil Servant' (1975), Victorian Scandals' (1976), 'Suez 1956' (1979), 'The Cuckoo Waltz' (1980), 'Sink or Swim' (1981), 'Minder' (1982), 'Strangers' (1978-82), 'Slingers Day' (1986) and 'The Bill' 1994).
Chris also appeared in the films, 'Whoops Apocalypse' (1986) as Flag Lieutenant Gerald Beaverstone, Goody Two Shoes (1983) as Mr Denby, 'A Free Weekend in the Country' (1982) as Det Chief Inspector Ben Forrest, 'Mary Blandt Part 3' (1982) as Rev Swinton and a man in a car in 'Soft Targets' (1982).
When he was young Chris was engaged to Cherrie Butlin, the daughter of UK holiday camp entrepreneur Billy Butlin. However she decided to move to Australia in 1958 and becoming an actress, she married fellow actor, Brook Denning. Chris married fellow actor Elizabeth Weaver, who starred in a host of TV series including 'Doomwatch' and 'Crown Court'. They married in Hampstead in 1961 and had three children - Sarah born in 1961, Daniel born in 1965, and Harriet born in 1970. They lived in Hampstead where he was a long standing member of the Hampstead community and where he died on the 29th of May 2021 at the age of 83.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/08/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-gladys.html
No comments:
Post a Comment