Rupert Davies
Encyclopedia
Rupert Davies was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actor. He remains best known for playing the title role in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's 1960s television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 adaptation of Maigret, based on the Maigret
Maigret
Jules Maigret, Maigret to most people, including his wife, is a fictional police detective, actually a commissaire or commissioner of the Paris "Brigade Criminelle" , created by writer Georges Simenon.Seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories about Maigret were published between 1931 and...

novels written by Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...

.

Davies was born in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

. After a service in the British Merchant Navy, during the Second World War he was a Sub-Lieutenant Observer with the Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...

. In 1940 the Swordfish
Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish was a torpedo bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company and used by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during the Second World War...

 aircraft in which he was flying ditched in the sea off the Dutch Coast. Davies was captured and interned in the famous Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...

 POW camp. He made three attempts to escape. All failed. It was during his captivity that he began to take part in theatre performances, entertaining his fellow prisoners.

On his release, Davies resumed his career in acting almost immediately, starring in an ex prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

 show, Back Home, which was hosted at the Stoll Theatre, London.

After the war Davies became a staple of British television appearing in numerous plays and series, including Quatermass II
Quatermass II
Quatermass II is a British science-fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives...

, Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe (1958 TV series)
Ivanhoe is a British television series first shown on ITV in 1958-59. It featured Roger Moore, in his first starring role, as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in a series of adventures aimed at a children's audience...

, Emergency - Ward 10, Danger Man
Danger Man
Danger Man is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the program and wrote many of the scripts...

, The Champions
The Champions
The Champions is a British espionage/science fiction/occult detective fiction adventure series consisting of 30 episodes broadcast on the UK network ITV during 1968–1969, produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company...

, Doctor at Large (1971), Arthur of the Britons
Arthur of the Britons
Arthur of the Britons is a British television show about the historical King Arthur. Produced by the HTV regional franchise, it consisted of two series, released between 1972 and 1973...

and War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...

(1972). He also provided the voice of Professor Ian McClaine in the Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....

 series Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...

. In 1964 he became the first person to win the Pipe Smoker of the Year
Pipe Smoker of the Year
Pipe Smoker of the Year was an award given out annually by the British Pipesmokers' Council, to honour a famous pipe-smoking individual. The award was discontinued in 2004 because its organisers feared it fell foul of laws banning all advertising and promotion of tobacco.-Pipe Smokers of the Year:...

 award.

Davies also played supporting roles in many films, appearing briefly as George Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...

 in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (film)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1965 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by John le Carré. It was adapted by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper. The film stars Richard Burton as Alec Leamas, along with Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Peter van Eyck, Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies and Cyril Cusack...

(1965). He also appeared in several horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

s in the late 1960s, including Witchfinder General
Witchfinder General (film)
Witchfinder General is a 1968 British horror film directed by Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, and Hilary Dwyer. The screenplay was by Reeves and Tom Baker based on Ronald Bassett's novel of the same name. Made on a low budget of under £100,000, the movie was coproduced by...

(1968) and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is a 1968 British horror film directed by Freddie Francis for Hammer Films. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, with support from Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews, Barbara Ewing, Ewan Hooper and Michael Ripper.- Plot :The film opens in a...

(1968), as well as such international movies as Waterloo (1970) and Zeppelin
Zeppelin (film)
Zeppelin is a 1971 British World War I action/drama film of a fictitious German attempt to raid Great Britain in a giant Zeppelin and steal the Magna Carta from its hiding place in one of Scotland's castles...

(1971).

He died of cancer in London in 1976, leaving a wife, Jessica, and two sons, Timothy and Hogan. Davies is buried at Pistyll Cemetery, near Nefyn
Nefyn
Nefyn is a small town and community on the north west coast of the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 2,619. Welsh is the first language of almost 80% of its inhabitants. The A497 road terminates in the town centre.-History:...

 in North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

.

External links

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