Richard Davies

Richard Davies was born Dennis Wilfred Davies on January 25, 1926 in Dowlais, Wales. In a television era unabashed at employing cultural and racial stereotypes for easy and often dubious humour, Richard Davies grew accustomed to finding himself typecast as irascible Welshmen perpetually bothered and bewildered by their English colleagues. An accomplished character actor with a theatre background that included West End appearances and seasons at the Bristol Old Vic, he always managed to resist caricature and bring a flesh-and-blood reality to often undemanding roles. He is best remembered as Mr Price, the sarcastic, long-suffering and world-weary science teacher in John Esmonde and Bob Larbey's Please Sir!, which, at its peak during its four-year run from 1968, attracted audiences of 20 million and spawned a 1971 film. Pitted against the puppy-dog enthusiasm of John Alderton's fresh-faced, newly graduated teacher, Davies provided a grittier perspective on the experience of teaching unruly students in a grimy inner-London suburb. His laconic, dyspeptic delivery regularly stole laughs and entire scenes from his fellow actors. The son of a railway guard, born in the village of Dowlais in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, he began acting at school before going down the mines for a brief time. When war broke out, he enlisted in the military police and soon found himself seconded to the Combined Services Entertainment Unit. Back on Civvy Street, he joined a touring theatre company and in 1947 made his West End debut in Little Lambs Eat Ivy at the Ambassadors Theatre. He spent the 1951-52 season touring Europe and South Africa with the Old Vic and in 1953 played the Welsh captain Fluellen in Henry V in Guildford. That year also saw him return to the West End in Carrington VC at the Westminster Theatre. By then, he had made his first appearance in film (a bit part in 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob). At the end of the decade Davies was back in Bristol where he played Feste (Twelfth Night, 1957) and Grumio and Vincentio in The Taming of the Shrew (1959). Although television increasingly came to dominate his career, in 1965 he appeared alongside Bob Monkhouse in Basil Ashmore's The Gulls at the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre. Later theatre credits included Gwyn Thomas' The Keep (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 1970) and several productions of Under Milk Wood, including Theatr Cymru's 25th anniversary revival (seen at London's Mayfair Theatre) in 1978. In the 1972 film version starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, he played Mr Pritchard. In the late 1980s, Davies was a member of a co-operative theatre company formed by ex-Please Sir! cast members, with whom he appeared in stage versions of classic BBC radio comedies. The success of Please Sir! led to regular small-screen appearances, notably as Idris Hopkins in Coronation Street (1974-75), Taffy Evans in Rule Britannia! (1975) and Clive in Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt (1976-77). He also made memorable contributions to episodes of Fawlty Towers (1979), Yes, Minister (1980) and in particular One Foot in the Grave (1992). His later film work never matched his iconic performance as Private 593 Jones in 1964's Zulu, alongside Michael Caine and Stanley Baker. In his later years he had suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died on October 8 2015, aged 89. He is survived by his second wife, the actress Jill Britton, to whom he was married for nearly 60 years, their two children, and a son from his first marriage.