Glyn Owen

Biography

Born in Bolton, Lancashire, the son of a Welsh railway guard, Glyn Owen left school aged 14 and worked in a telegraph office. He completed his national service in 1946-48 during which time he acted in the War Office's amateur dramatic company. For the next five years he was a police officer in London's Paddington district, while continuing in amateur dramatics and receiving acting training at the Actors' Studio in St John's Wood.

By 1955 he was performing with the George Mitchell Singers in Blackpool, with the impresario Lew Grade as his agent. His television debut was in 1956 in The Trollenberg Terror. His other television roles included Coronation Street, The Brothers, Doomwatch, The Adventures of William Tell, The Rat Catchers, Doctor Who (episode: "The Power of Kroll", 1978), All Creatures Great and Small, Take the High Road, The Capone Investment, Ennal's Point, Oil Strike North, Survivors, and Blake's 7. In "Colony Three", a 1964 episode of Danger Man, he played Randall, John Drake's assigned roommate at a Soviet spy training facility. He appeared in a 1978 episode of The Professionals, "Rogue", in which he played a corrupt CI5 agent. His short career as a policeman stood him in good stead to play the role of Wally, an alcoholic ex-policeman, in an episode of the fourth series of The Sweeney called "Money, Money, Money". In 2003, he appeared with his former Howards' Way co-star Ivor Danvers in the Doctor Who tie-in audio play Nekromanteia.

His film appearances were few but included roles in Inn for Trouble (1960), Attack on the Iron Coast (1967), One More Time (1970), and the 1975 Children's Film Foundation movie The Firefighters.

He appeared regularly on the West End stage and in fringe theatre. He appeared at Edinburgh with Tom Courtenay in Hamlet, and made numerous appearances at Hampstead between the late 1960s and the 1980s. He appeared in musicals and pantomime, including The Four Musketeers with Harry Secombe at Drury Lane, Dick Whittington with Ken Dodd at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, and Roll on Four O'Clock for Colin Welland at Wythenshawe (which transferred to the Palace, Shaftesbury Avenue). He toured North America with the RSC, finishing at the Palace Theatre, New York City, in London Assurance. He joined the National Theatre Company to appear as the father in Equus, and won an award for his portrayal of the father in Spring and Port Wine.

Personal life

Owen was married twice, his first marriage having been to the actress Patricia Mort. His two children, Lloyd and Cathy Owen, are also actors. Glyn Owen died of cancer aged 76, on 10 September 2004, in Gwynedd, Wales. He was survived by his second wife, Carrie Clifton Owen, and his children.