Talfryn Thomas

Talfryn Thomas Biography

Talfryn Thomas (31 October 1922 – 4 November 1982) was a Welsh character actor, best known for supporting roles on British television in the 1970s.

Biography

John Talfryn Thomas was born in Britain on 31 October 1922, at Swansea, South Wales. He trained as an instrument mechanic but joined the local amateur dramatic society. During World War II he was a rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber, flying on multiple raids into Germany. After surviving a crash in which all the other crewmembers were killed, Thomas took up acting partly as a diversion from the trauma. He subsequently trained as an actor in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).

For some time he acted in provincial theatres, and he began making television appearances in the late 1950s. Among his earliest television appearances were his roles in two episodes of The Avengers - A Surfeit of H2O (1965) and Look Stop Me (1968) - and with Roger Moore in The Saint (1968). He followed this by playing with Jon Pertwee in the Doctor Who serials, Spearhead from Space (1970) and The Green Death (1973). Thomas excelled at playing quirky and sometimes seedy Welshmen. His distinctive appearance was enhanced by his protruding front teeth, which earned him the nickname 'Talf The Teef'. He is probably best remembered for his role as Private Cheeseman, a member of the Home Guard in later episodes of Dad's Army (1973-1974).

In 1975 Thomas featured in several episodes of the first series of the BBC TV series, Survivors, as Tom Price. In 1979 he appeared on The Ken Dodd Laughter Show with Rita Webb and Pat Ashton (and he was a regular on Ken Dodd's BBC radio comedy show).

Talfryn's few films included Andrew Sinclair's adaptation of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1972), with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O'Toole. Like Burton, Talfryn Thomas had been in the original radio play. He was also seen in the cult film, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980) from Vivian Stanshall.

Thomas died from a heart attack on November 4, 1982, four days after his 60th birthday.

Selected television roles

Year	Title	Role
1968	The Saint	Owen Thomas
1973	Seven of One	Mr Pugh
1973 to 1974	Dad's Army	Private Cheeseman
1975	Survivors	Tom Price
1977	King of the Castle
1979	The Ken Dodd Laughter Show	Various
1981	The Incredible Mr Tanner	Cledwyn
1982	Hi-de-Hi!	Gareth Davies

This webpage uses material from the Wikipedia article "Talfryn_Thomas" and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Reality TV World is not responsible for any errors or omissions the Wikipedia article may contain.

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