John Campbell Wells (17 November 1936 – 11 January 1998) was an English actor, writer and satirist.
Early life
The son of a cleric, Wells was born in Ashford, Kent, in 1936. He was educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Wells also played Denis Thatcher in the Bond movie For Your Eyes Only (1981). In 1991, he and Thorne again played the Thatchers in Dunrulin, a one-off TV sitcom-like satirical look at the couple in retirement. He also voiced Arnold the Elephant, Edward the Monkey and Bert in the children's TV series Charlie Chalk.
In 1988, Leonard Bernstein started working on a new version of his much-revised operetta Candide. The author of the original book, Hugh Wheeler, had died, and John Wells was asked to help revise the text. The first production of this "final version", by Scottish Opera, was followed by a "final revised version" in 1989, performances of which have been released on CD and DVD. An insert in the DVD ("Bernstein and Voltaire"), written by Wells, explained what Bernstein had wanted in this final revised version.
Wells authored Rude Words in 1991, a history of the London Library, for the institution's 150th anniversary.
In 1997, Wells appeared in the BBC situation comedy Chalk as ineffectual headmaster Richard Nixon. His fellow cast members do not recall him being ill on set, but he was too unwell to participate in the second series.
Wells' last book, House of Lords, was a best-seller and published a year before his death in 1998. The book is a historical and humorous study of the British peerage system.
Personal life
In 1982, Wells married Teresa Chancellor (daughter of Sir Christopher and sister of Alexander). She had been married to Edward Gatacre, son of Sir William Forbes Gatacre. Their daughter, actress Dolly Wells, was the product of their affair; she was brought up believing Gatacre was her father and Wells was her stepfather.
Wells died of cancer in London in 1998 at the age of 61.