Ronald Fraser (actor)

Background

Ronald Fraser was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the son of an interior decorator and builder from Scotland. He attended Ashton Grammar School. He was educated in Scotland and did national service as a lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders. While serving in Benghazi in North Africa, he appeared in the comic play French Without Tears by Terence Rattigan. He trained as an actor at RADA until 1953 and soon appeared at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre. He joined the Old Vic repertory company in 1954, making his first London appearance in The Good Sailor, a stage adaptation of Herman Melville's novel, Billy Budd.

In the West End, he appeared in The Long and the Short and the Tall, The Ginger Man, The Singular Man, Androcles and the Lion, The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet, Purple Dust by Seán O'Casey, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joseph Papp's production of The Pirates of Penzance and High Society. He also played Falstaff in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. His only Broadway show was the flop La Grosse Valise by Robert Dhéry, Gérard Calvi and Harold Rome.

He appeared in numerous television roles from 1954, and in nearly 50 films from 1957, mostly in comedies.

Personal life

Fraser was a resident of Hampstead, London. He was a heavy drinker and a well-known figure in the local hostelries. He was married from 1956 to 1964 to Elizabeth Howe, and the couple had two daughters.

He died of a haemorrhage, aged 66, in London. The pallbearers at his funeral were Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole, Simon Ward (who had played his son in The Misfit) and Chris Evans. Nicholas Whittaker, author of Platform Souls and Blue Period, worked in the Belsize Tavern in 1979 and 1980 and recalls Fraser's regular visits to the pub, usually in the company of actor James Villiers.