Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

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Geoffrey Palmer as Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By

Geoffrey Palmer, OBE (4 June 1927 in London) is an English actor, noted mostly for his extensive career in situation comedies.

1 Biography
2 Career highlights
3 Awards and recognition
4 Selected filmography
- 4.1 Television
- 4.2 Film
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Having been demobilised from the Royal Marines, Palmer drifted into theatre, joining a local amateur dramatics society because of a girlfriend. He became assistant stage manager at the Q Theatre, by Kew Bridge, then the Grand Theatre in Croydon. He spent several years touring with a repertory company and was a mainly theatre actor, coming to television and public prominence late in his career.

Getting a major break in John Osborne's West of Suez at the Royal Court with Ralph Richardson, he then acted in major productions at the Royal Court and the Royal National Theatre. Many of his television parts were as a stuffy, middle class buffoon, or known for deadpan drollery. His distinctive voice has led to a career in advert and television voiceovers, most notably Grumpy Old Men.

He starred opposite Judi Dench for over a decade in the situation comedy As Time Goes By; it has been rerun extensively in the U.S. on PBS and BBC America and may thus be the role for which American audiences remember him the most.

In 1997 Palmer once again had the chance to star opposite his close friend and collegue Judi Dench in the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies where he portrayed the British admiral, Admiral Roebuck and in the film Mrs. Brown as Queen Victoria's scheming Private Secretary Sir Henry Ponsonby.

Palmer is married to Sally. They have two children: Charles and Harriet.

He narrated the audiobook version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, released in 2005 as a podcast by Penguin Books.

[edit] Career highlights

Palmer's roles in British TV series include:

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976), as manic ex-soldier Jimmy Anderson
Butterflies (1978), as Ben Parkinson
Fairly Secret Army (1984)
As Time Goes By (1992–2005), as Lionel Hardcastle

Palmer also made guest appearances in:

Blackadder Goes Forth, as Field Marshal Douglas "Duggie" Haig (1989)
Fawlty Towers as Dr. Price in the episode "The Kipper and the Corpse" (1979)
Doctor Who as civil servant Edward Masters in the story Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970), and as the Administrator in the story The Mutants (1972)
The Avengers as diabolical mastermind Martin Smythe in the episode "A Surfeit of H2O". (1965)