Ballard Berkeley

Ballard Berkeley
Born	Ballard Blascheck 6 August 1903 Margate, Kent, England, UK
Died	1988 London, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1930-1988

Ballard Berkeley (born Ballard Blascheck; 6 August 1903 – 16 January 1988) was an English actor of stage and screen. He played Major Gowen in the British television sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Life and career

The son of Joseph and Beatrice Blascheck, he was born in Margate, Kent. He served as a Special Constable with the Metropolitan Police during World War II, witnessing the Blitz at first hand. For this service he received the Defence Medal and the Special Constabulary Long Service Medal.

Berkeley played the role of the bumbling Major Gowen in the BBC TV comedy Fawlty Towers. He had played a similar role in 1969 in the legal drama The Main Chance. He portrayed another retired military man (Colonel Freddie Danby) in BBC Radio 4's The Archers, taking over the role from Norman Shelley.

He played a starring role in Fresh Fields as main character Hester's father Guy, was Uncle Greville in To the Manor Born, and played Colonel Culpepper in Terry and June. He had small roles in a 1977 episode of Citizen Smith and the 1980 adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and appeared once in The New Avengers as Colonel Foster in the episode "Dirtier by the Dozen". He had a small role in the BBC sitcom Hi de Hi series five episode "Empty Saddles"

During the 1930s, he performed regularly in the so-called "quota quickies". One of his earliest roles was as the heroic lead in the 1937 film The Last Adventurers. He appeared in the 1942 film In Which We Serve – he also appeared in the Hitchcock film Stage Fright. In 1956, he starred as Detective Inspector Berkeley in one episode of Edgar Lustgarten's drama series, Scotland Yard, "Person Unknown". He made a brief appearance in the American film National Lampoon's European Vacation which starred Chevy Chase. In this film, Berkeley played a British man who is involved in a minor road accident with the Griswalds.

Berkeley later performed the role of Winston - a similar character to "The Major" - in the radio comedy Wrinkles by Doug Naylor and Rob Grant. He played Badedas the Blue, a wizard in the radio comedy series Hordes of the Things. His last role was as the Head of the Army in the animated film version of Roald Dahl's The BFG. He died in 1988, and the film was released the following year.

Selected filmography

• East Meets West (1936)
• The Last Adventurers (1937)
• The Saint in London (1939)
• Black Eyes (1939)
• In Which We Serve (1942)
• They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
• Third Time Lucky (1949)
• Stage Fright (1950)
• Blackmailed (1951)
• Mister Drake's Duck (1951)
• The Frightened Man (1952)
• The Blue Parrot (1953)
• Operation Diplomat (1953)
• Dangerous Cargo (1954)
• The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954)
• See How They Run (1955)
• My Teenage Daughter (1956)
• After the Ball (1957)
• Further Up the Creek (1958)
• Cone of Silence (1960)
• Impact (1963)
• The Murder Game (1965)
• Night Caller from Outer Space (1965)
• Hostile Witness (1968)
• The Weekend Murders (1970)
• Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976)
• The Playbirds (1978)
• Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979)
• The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980)
• Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
• Bullshot (1983)
• National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) – Second English Motorist
• The BFG (1989)

External links

• Ballard Berkeley at the Internet Movie Database
• Ballard Berkeley at Find a Grave