Alan Wheatley

Life and career

Born in Tolworth, Surrey, the son of a bank clerk, William Henry Wheatley and his wife, Rose (née Towers), Alan Wheatley worked as a radio announcer before turning to stage and screen acting in the 1930s, as a player during the black-and-white era of film and television. He had originally been an industrial psychologist. Wheatley made his film debut in Conquest of the Air (1936), which remained unreleased for four years. During the Second World War, he worked for BBC Radio, as both an actor and an announcer.

Wheatley starred as Sherlock Holmes in the 1951 BBC TV series, which was the first such series though not the Holmes character's first appearance on television. The program aired live for six episodes, and apparently no recordings were made. In the later Robin Hood series, Wheatley appeared regularly as the Sheriff in the first three seasons; in the fourth and final season, his role was mostly taken over by that of the Deputy Sheriff (John Arnatt) as a result of Wheatley's departure from the series. He also had roles in Danger Man and The Avengers. Wheatley played the first character to be killed on-screen by a Dalek in Doctor Who, when he appeared as Thal leader Temmosus in the 1963–64 serial The Daleks.

His film credits include: Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), The Rake's Progress (1945), Brighton Rock (1947), Calling Paul Temple (1948), The Pickwick Papers (1952), Spaceways (1953), Simon and Laura (1955), A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964) and Tomorrow at Ten (1964) among others. He also appeared in Inn for Trouble (1960), a film spin-off of the TV comedy The Larkins.

Wheatley was also a prolific stage actor. His theatre credits included Clifford Bax's The House of Borgia (1935), the lead in This Way to the Tomb, and the tormented soul, Harry, in The Family Reunion. He appeared in two versions of the thriller play Rope, in 1950 and 1953, and starred as Abanazar in the Cole Porter musical pantomime Aladdin' at the London Coliseum in 1960. He also played the Abbé in a BBC radio adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, with Andrew Sachs (as Dantes) in 1987, and the High Lama in the 1981 BBC Radio 4 "Classic Serial" version of Lost Horizon, with Derek Jacobi as Hugh Conway.

Wheatley died in Westminster, London in 1991 of a heart attack, aged 84.