John William Francis Hallam (28 October 1941 – 14 November 2006) was a character actor from Northern Ireland, who frequently played hard men or military types. On returning to England, he boarded at St Albans School, before starting his working life in a London bank. Despite having a talent for mathematics, he said he was sacked for getting the figures right without being able to explain how he did so. As a result, he ended up selling deckchairs on the South Coast, where he eventually found acting work in repertory theatre. He was seen performing on television for the first time in 1967, in the small role of a watchman when the BBC screened the director Franco Zeffirelli's National Theatre production of Much Ado About Nothing (Old Vic).
Stage roles became infrequent when an unending flow of film and television work followed.
Film
On the big screen, he worked his way up from small roles as an officer in The Charge of the Light Brigade (directed by Tony Richardson, 1968) and a revolting Burpa tribesman in Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) to more substantial roles as Sir Meles of Bohemia in A Walk with Love and Death (the director John Huston's tale of 14th-century romance in France, 1969).
He appeared in Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple “4:50 from Paddington” as Cedric Crackenthorple. He also appeared as McTaggart in the director's cut of the 1973 film The Wicker Man. His later film roles included a Baron in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and as Mandara in Kull the Conqueror (1997).
He also appeared as "Gypsy Joe" in the Minder episode "In", (1982) and in the BBC's television adaptations of two tales from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, from 1988 until 1990, and later starred as Ali Ben Hassad in the 1998 TV movie The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo. He also appeared in the show Blackadder (1983 Season 1, Episode 6: The Black Seal) as Sir Wilfred Death.
He had a semi-regular role in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, playing prison inmate Barnsey Barnes, a character that appears as the cellmate of regular character Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) while he is serving time at the fictional Dickens Hill prison.
Personal life
Hallam married theatrical mask-maker Vicky Brinkworth in 1966, and they had four children together, but divorced in 1992 after twenty-six years of marriage.
Hallam’s daughter Nancy is married to former footballer, Ian Wright.
Death
On 14 November 2006, Hallam died of testicular cancer in Clifton, Oxfordshire, England after a brief spell of ill health.
Filmography
References
External links
- John Hallam obituary in The Independent 20 November 2006