Tony Britton

Life and career

Britton was born in a room above the Trocadero public house in Temple Street, Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Doris Marguerite (née Jones) and Edward Leslie Britton. He attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham and Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire. During the Second World War he served in the Army and he also worked for an estate agents and in an aircraft factory. He joined an amateur dramatics group in Weston-super-Mare and then turned professional, appearing on stage at the Old Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He has appeared in numerous British films from the 1950s onwards, including such classics as Operation Amsterdam (1959), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and The Day of the Jackal (1973). Britton won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for The Nearly Man.

From 1983 to 1990, he starred with Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan in the BBC sitcom, Don't Wait Up. His other sitcoms appearances include ...And Mother Makes Five and Robin's Nest.

In September 2013 Sir Jonathan Miller directed a Gala Performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear at the Old Vic in London. Britton played the Earl of Gloucester.

Britton and his first wife Ruth (née Hawkins) had two children, scriptwriter Cherry Britton and TV presenter Fern Britton. Cherry was married to children's TV presenter Brian Cant. Fern is married to Phil Vickery. Britton's second wife is Danish sculptor and member of the wartime Danish resistance Eva Castle Britton (née Skytte Birkfeldt). They have one son, actor Jasper Britton.