Howard Lew Lewis

Of Welsh ancestry through both his parents, Lewis was born in London in 1941. His grandmother was the noted opera singer Dame Ethel Gomer Lewis, and he was also related to the actor Rupert Davies who played Maigret. Despite being somewhat typecast as an oafish character in many of his roles, Lewis was in fact a very bookish man, and had a personal library of over 35,000 volumes. As a young man, his flat mate was the actor Ken Morley best known for Coronation Street. The pair remained friends throughout their lives and Morley was Lewis' best man at his wedding.