Anton Rodgers


Anthony Rodgers was an English actor and occasional director. He performed on stage, in film, in television dramas and sitcoms. He starred in several sitcoms, including Fresh Fields, its sequel French Fields, and May to December.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, he appeared in many of the Lew Grade Incorporated Television Company classics. He was the memorable villain in the 1968 episode "One of Our Aircraft Is Empty" in the spy-fi Department S.
He also appeared in films, including Scrooge ''The Day of the Jackal and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels''.

Early life and career

Rodgers was born on 10 January 1933 in London, the son of William Robert Rodgers and Leonore Victoria. His early education was at Westminster City School. The family was evacuated to Wisbech, Isle of Ely, during the war, where his father worked for Balding and Mansell, printers of ration books, permits and passes; Rodgers is sometimes erroneously reported as having been born in Wisbech. Later, he was educated at the Italia Conti Academy and LAMDA.
He appeared on stage from the age of 14. He was known for his television performances, specifically his long-running roles in the television sitcoms Fresh Fields in the 1980s and May to December from 1989 to 1994.
He also had a long career both on stage and in film. His stage roles ranged from contemporary comedy and satirical farce to Restoration comedy, Ibsen, Shaw and Wilde and Peter Nichols. He appeared in films such as The Man Who Haunted Himself, Scrooge, The Day of the Jackal, and The Fourth Protocol. He also narrated the children's animated TV series Old Bear Stories, and appeared as Andre, the comically corrupt French policeman who aided Michael Caine in his romantic and financial schemes in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
He narrated three programmes for the railway video production company Video 125

Personal life

Rodgers married Morna Watson, a ballet dancer, in Kensington in 1959, having a son and a daughter and later divorcing. Rodgers's second wife was the actress Elizabeth Garvie; they frequently appeared on stage together and toured giving readings from the works of Jane Austen and Robert Browning, among others.
He was a patron of the Angles Theatre, Wisbech.
Rodgers died in Reading, Berkshire on 1 December 2007, aged 74. At the time of his death, he was a resident of Whitchurch-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Credits

Theatre

Rodgers made his first West End appearance in 1947, aged 14, in Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He followed this in same year with a tour of an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations playing Pip, and the title role in a revival of Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy which toured the UK in 1948. After repertory experience at Birmingham, Northampton and Hornchurch, he trained at LAMDA.
Returning to London in November 1957, he joined the cast of The Boy Friend at Wyndham's Theatre. Thereafter, his credits include:

Selected filmography

Vice Versa – Pupil The Browning Version – Pupil Crash Drive – TomsonNight Train for Inverness – Scottish Doctor The Spider's Web – Sgt. JonesOn the Fiddle – Soldier in NAAFI Canteen Tarnished Heroes – Don ConyersPart-Time Wife – Tom BriggsPetticoat Pirates – AlecGirl on Approval – Snooty Bowler-hatted Neighbour Carry On Cruising – Young ManOperation Stogie – JockThe Traitors The Iron Maiden – ConciergeThis Sporting Life – Restaurant Customer Carry On Jack – HardyComedy Workshop: Love and Maud Carver – P.R.O. / Window DresserRotten to the Core – The DukeTo Chase a Million – Max SteinThe Man Who Haunted Himself – Tony AlexanderScrooge – Tom JenkinsThe Day of the Jackal – Jules BernardThe Secret Agent – Mr. VladimirIntimate Reflections – Michael WhiteEast of Elephant Rock – MackintoshThe Fourth Protocol – George BerensonDirty Rotten Scoundrels – Inspector AndreImpromptu – Duke D'AntanSon of the Pink Panther – Chief LazarSecret Passage – FoscariThe Merchant of Venice – The DukeThe Last Drop – Churchill Go Go Tales – Barfly

Television

The Sky Larks – L.T. Gilmore, RN One Step Beyond – Mark Compact – Phil The Third Man – Fred Maigret – Radek The Old Curiosity Shop –Dick Swiveller Richard the Lionheart – Sir Kenneth Stuart The Sentimental Agent – Mr Fripp Danger Man – Attala Gideon's Way – Peter Slone Sherlock Holmes – Hugh Boone Out of the Unknown: The Eye – Julian ClayBlanding's Castle – Rupert Baxter Man in a Suitcase – Max Stein The Prisoner – Number Two The Saint – Pierre The World of Wooster – Bicky Bickersteth The Champions – Jules Department S – Terrell The Elusive Pimpernel – Sir Percy Blakeney Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) – Calvin Bream Fraud Squad – Dr. David Matthews Upstairs, Downstairs – Scone Jason King – Philippe de Brion The Organisation – Peter Frame The Protectors – Alan Sutherland Affairs of the Heart – James Mallory Justice – Frank Jarrot Zodiac –David Gradley The Secret Agent – Mr VladimirNightingale's Boys – Izzy Village Hall – Hon. Gerald Napier The Duchess of Duke Street – Newdigate Crown Court – Thomas Haspburg-Jones QC Murder Most English: A Flaxborough Chronicle – Detective Inspector Purbright Disraeli – Bentinck Lillie – Edward Langtry Rumpole of the Bailey – Ken Aspen Return of the Saint – Geoffrey Connaught Play for Today: Coming Out – Lewis Duncan / Zippy Grimes Thomas & Sarah – Richard DeBrassey Something in Disguise – John Cole Pictures – Garfield Forbes-Lawson Fresh Fields – William Fields Murder with Mirrors – Dr. Max Hargrove After the War – Samuel Jordan Comeback – JohnFrench Fields – William Fields May to December – Alec Callender Performance – David Scott-Fowler The Queen's Nose – Mr. Swingit Noah's Ark – Noah Kirby Up Rising – Ronald Kegworthy Midsomer Murders "Market for Murder" – Lord James Chetwood C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia – C. S. LewisWhere the Heart Is – Fred Longford – William WhitelawYou Can Choose Your Friends – Ken Snell

Voice

HST West & Far West – NarratorHST Great West – NarratorOld Bear Stories – Narrator, Old Bear, Bramwell Brown, Little Bear, Rabbit and many others Brambly Hedge – Lord Woodmouse Wide-Eye – Wide-Eye, Great Grandma Toad and Father Natterjack The Paz Show – Pappy