Ron Pember

Character & Episode: Fairground Concessionaire in Vendetta for a Dead Man
Born: 11/04/1934, Plaistow, London, England (as Ronald Henry Pember)
Died: 08/03/2022

Ron Pember was a retired English actor, stage director and dramatist. A prolific and well-regarded character actor since the late 1950s, he had more than one hundred and fifty film and television credits to his name. He was busy on television from the 1960s to the early 1990s, generally in small but memorable parts. Ron received his formal education at Eastbrook Secondary Modern School in Dagenham. Before he left school, he became a member of an Arts Council Company which played Shakespeare in Durham pubs, and Ron gained valuable acting experience in 1949 on a tour of the Durham Mining District, playing the part of Fabian in Twelfth Night. He also gained stage-management experience by helping at theatres in the evenings while he was at school. Most of his stage work has been in the variety theatre, and he once had his own singing and comedy trio. Whilst serving with the Royal Air Force from 1952-54 as part of the United Kingdom's National Service military training system, he toured the Middle East as one of a trio with the RAF Show Band. In 1956 he was stage director for the summer show, Starlight Rendezvous, which performed at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. Soon after he joined a repertory company, The Penguin Players, as assistant stage manager, and also appeared in small parts there. Ron went on to make his London stage debut at the newly-launched Mermaid Theatre in 1959 in a production of Treasure Island, and would later feature in the musical Blitz! at the Adelphi Theatre in 1962.

Ron's television career commenced in the early 1960s. Early screen roles came in the following 1961 productions: with a bit-part role as a wounded soldier in The Avengers (Double Danger), Looking About (Florence Nightingale), Armchair Theatre (Looking for Frankie), Probation Officer (first episode of Series 3) and Dixon of Dock Green (The Loose Load). Not one of these programmes survives today.

After these breakthrough television roles, Ron worked mainly in the theatre until the mid-Sixties, when he became in demand for screen roles too. After his uncredited appearance in the film The Pumpkin Eater (1964), he went on to feature the highly regarded Poor Cow in 1967. Another film role was in the horror-suspense film Death Line (1972). On television, he was cast in the era-defining Wednesday Play, Cathy Come Home (1966), which starred Ray Brooks, another Randall and Hopkirk actor, and also in The Pilgrim's Progress (1967) in multiple roles. In addition to his television and film work, from 1965 to 1968 he acted with the National Theatre in London, departing to rejoin the Mermaid Theatre. At the Mermaid, Ron acted in productions of Bernard and the musical The Band Wagon and directed the late 1960s productions The Goblet Game, Lock Up Your Daughters and Treasure Island (also appearing in the last two of these). He subsequently took the Treasure Island production on tour to New York and several Canadian cities. In 1970, he directed productions of Enter Solly Gold and Henry IV, Part I / Part II, and produced and directed Dick Turpin, a play which he also wrote. He played the role of Trinculo in a production of The Tempest (1970) at the theatre, and also directed King and Country and The Point! (both 1976, the latter of which he co-adapted). In 1974 he co-wrote and composed the theatre musical Jack the Ripper, based on the infamous London murder rampage of 1888, which had a run in London's West End. It debuted at the Players' Theatre, Covent Garden, in June 1974, and transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre that September, ending its run at the Cambridge Theatre in early 1975.

Ron made several appearance in ITC shows in addition to his Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) role, featuring in The Saint (The People Importers, 1968), Department S (The Ghost of Mary Burnham, 1969), Strange Report (Report 3906 - COVER GIRLS: Last Year's Model, 1969), UFO (Timelash, 1971) and The Protectors (Blockbuster), the latter two series being made by former Supermarionation tsar Gerry Anderson. Ron's stand-out 1970s and 1980s roles included episodes of Crown Court, The XXY Man and Secret Army, Sink or Swim (1980-81, with Peter Davison and Robert Glenister), and the sketch comedies The Dick Emery Show and The Two Ronnies, all of which were recurring roles.

Ron was due to open in the second week of December 1992 in the title role of his musical version of Scrooge when he was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke just days before the first night. He fortunately survived this health scare but was forced to retire from acting. Ron spent his final years in Southend-on-Sea with his wife Yvonne Tylee (1938- ), whom he married in 1959. Ron died on 8th March 2022.

Luan Peters

Character & Episode: Dancer in That's How Murder Snowballs
Born: 18/06/1946, Bethnal Green, London, England (as Carol Ann Hirsch)
Died: 24/12/2017

Though Luan Peters - born Carol Ann Hirsch - was not from a showbiz family, her grandparents were German ex-patriots who emigrated to London when her father was three; he grew up to be a garage owner in the East End of London. Carol made her stage debut at the age of four in a pantomime, the beginnings of her realisation of a childhood wish to be a singer and dancer. Growing up, she attended Dalston County Grammar School and won a scholarship at 16 after appearing in a stage production of Twelfth Night.

After Carol left school, she initially trained at the Italia Conti stage school in London and then spent two years at the East Fifteen Acting School, a branch of Joan Littlewood's Stratford East Theatre Royal, studying singing, dancing and acting. When her training was over, she signed up with the management company Keystone Promotions, from whose name her stage moniker, Karol Keyes, was derived. Soon she found herself with a contract at the Fontana label, and in December 1964, her first single was released, a version of Motown girl Mary Wells’ You Beat Me to the Punch. The highly regarded No-one Can Take Your Place was issued as the B-side. Despite promoting the release on TV’s Thank Your Lucky Stars pop music programme that month, the single flopped, and Carol was quietly dropped by the label. She reappeared a year or so later fronting the group Karol Keyes and the Big Sound. The band had previously been known as The Fat Sound, but, for fairly obvious reasons, Carol insisted on a name change. The group performed at numerous gigs in and around its Manchester base. When Carol was offered an audition with Columbia in 1966, she took the group with her. However, the label declined to use the band and opted to record Carol as a soloist. She quit the group as a result and soon began to concentrate on acting.

Though her first professional engagement was role in Dixon of Dock Green in 1966, Carol made her television acting debut in 1967 in the final episode of the Doctor Who serial The Macra Terror as Chicki, still at this point using the Karol Keyes name. Subsequently, she appeared in several series in same year, including Mickey Dunne, Z Cars and Crossroads. In 1968 she assumed the stage name Luan Peters (she chose the surname in honour of actress Jean Peters) and went on to feature in further episodes of Z Cars, an episode of Strange Report, and Philip Mackie's The Caesars for Granada Television, among other roles. She also played Trudi in the Hammer film Lust for a Vampire (released in January 1971) and returned to the famous horror studio for Twins of Evil (October 1971). She would feature in another horror in 1972, The Flesh and Blood Show, for director Pete Walker – also in the cast were Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) actors Ray Brooks and Robin Askwith.

During 1971 Luan enjoyed a six-episode stint as Lorna Shawcross in the long running soap opera Coronation Street, but it seemed that her music career wasn't quite over, however, it had merely taken a break. In 1974, she featured in a stage musical about The Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo...& Bert, playing the part of Tiny Tina. One of her songs, Ooee Boppa, featured on the original cast recording issued on LP and cassette. A year later, Luan was engaged as lead singer of the band 5000 Volts and appeared on Top of the Pops singing their hit song I'm On Fire. Despite what viewers saw, the actual vocalist was Tina Charles, who had left the band unexpectedly after making the recording; Luan was simply hired in to front the band. Peters continued to release singles (mainly in Europe) throughout the remainder of the decade and into the early 1980s as one half of the duo Trouble with Deborah Gray.

In 1979, Luan's guest role as Raylene Miles, an Australian, in the The Psychiatrist a second series episode of Fawlty Towers was pure comedy gold, and while the general public may not remember the actress' or character's names, her pitch-perfect performance is indelibly engraved in sitcom history. She was a regular on the Cannon and Ball comedy series too, between 1979 and 1980, though time has certainly been kinder to Fawlty Towers. After these two series, she appeared in two poorly received feature films - The Wildcats of St Trinian's and Pacific Banana (both 1980), an Australian sex comedy. Her next recorded credits were as different characters in two separate episodes of The Bill in 1989 and 1990 and, aside from contributions to a retrospective about Fawlty Towers in 2005, these marked her final screen appearances prior to her death on Christmas Eve, 2017.

Terence Plummer

Character & Episode: Pete in Whoever Heard of a Ghost Dying?
Born: 1936 (as Harold Terence Plummer)
Died: 15/07/2011, Surrey, England

Terence Plummer was a well-known film and television stuntman, who was seen regularly in 'heavy' roles as henchmen and villains as well as in other minor roles. As an actor he appeared in many bit parts, and The Heroes of Telemark (1965), Death Line (1972), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Willow (1988) and Batman (1989) were just some of the films he made contributions to. On television he appeared in such series as The Avengers and Blake's 7. His last credited screen appearance in an acting role was in the feature film Sexy Beast in 2000.

Nosher Powell

Character & Episode: Lord Dorking in Just for the Record
Born: 15/08/1928, Camberwell, London, England (as Frederick Bernard Powell)
Died: 20/04/2013, London, England

Nosher Powell had an extremely interesting life and a colourful career. As an infant, he was given the nickname Nosher by his mother due to his large appetite for food. Brought up in the Elephant and Castle area of South London, he first attended Rockingham Street School and then later went to Swanage Grammar School in Dorset. Nosher left school at the age of fifteen and at 16 he took his first substantive job, as a porter at Covent Garden market. One night he witnessed a fight with cups, saucers and knives at a coffee stall, and the next night he enrolled in the boxing club. His civilian life was interrupted by National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt, where he won the United and Imperial Heavyweight championships. On his demobilisation, instead of returning to Covent Garden he joined Lynn boxing club and after just six amateur contests turned professional. Nosher sparred with some of the biggest names in the ring and these included the great Mohammed Ali, 'Pretty Boy' Shaw, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson. He also taught Jean-Claude Van Damme – 'The Muscles from Brussels' – how to box properly for the feature film Legionnaire (1998), despite Nosher having retired from professional boxing in 1960.

In his autobiography, Nosher (1999), he is described as the ultimate hard man: a boxer, bouncer, minder and a stuntman. He is one of a small band of people who was able to boast that he had forcibly ejected the famed hellraiser Oliver Reed from a party. In his minding days, he looked after such luminaries as John Paul Getty, Sammy Davies Jnr, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and the great crooner Dean Martin. Sources differ regarding the number of fights he contested and won in his career. His autobiography claims that he fought 78 contests, 51 of which were as a professional, with nine losses and no knockouts suffered. Boxer.com disagrees, suggesting that Nosher won 34 from 50 professional fights, with 16 losses (nine by KO, two by TKO and five on points). Disregarding the disputed nature of his career statistics, Nosher had nonetheless proved himself a useful heavyweight during his sporting career.

Nosher started in films as an extra and stunt performer on the movie Henry V (1944), which starred Laurence Olivier. In the fullness of time, Nosher would make more than one hundred and fifty contributions to different films and television productions. His first credited acting appearance would follow in 1951 in Lewis Gilbert’s production There is Another Sun. His contributions as a stunt performer in films were numerous and include work on the comedy Passport to Pimlico (1949), Doctor at Sea (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Dracula (1958) and Ben-Hur (1959). He also performed stunts in David Lean's sprawling epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962), which starred Peter O’Toole, and another award-winning blockbuster, Cleopatra (1963). He was a stuntman on most of the James Bond films and also worked on Star Wars (1977) and Superman (1978). His last credit as a stuntman was in 1998 in Legionnaire.

As an actor he has often played heavies and had many credits in non-speaking parts. His made appearances many television series including The Baron in 1966, a couple of episodes of The Saint (1965 and 1967), three episodes of The Avengers (1967 and 1969) and Department S (1969). He also appeared in a few episodes of the comedy series On the Buses (1969 and 1971) and in The Benny Hill Show. In 1972 he was the subject of This is Your Life. Later, in 1974, he played a footpad in the feature film Carry On Dick and a year later returned to the fold to appear in One in the Eye for Harold, an episode of the Carry On Laughing television series. He was a frequent guest actor in The Comic Strip Presents series between 1982 and 1992, most memorably appearing as the heavy who blah-blah-blahed on about stolen plans and missing scientists in the opening episode, Five Go Mad in Dorset. His last credited screen appearance as an actor was in the film Shiner (2000).

In his personal life, Nosher was married to Pauline Wellman, with whom he had shared a pram as a baby. Together they ran a pub near the Wimbledon greyhound stadium. They had sons, Greg Powell (1954-) and Gary Powell (1963-), who also became stuntmen and occasional bit-part actors. The Powell family has contributed stunts to hundreds of films over the years, including blockbusters such as the James Bond and Harry Potter films. His brother Dinny Powell (1932-) is also a well-known stuntman and occasional actor. Nosher was also secretary of the British Jousting Association, formed in the late 1960s by a group of British stunt performers, and led by him and Max Diamond.