Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

This article is about the actor. For other uses, see Geoffrey Palmer (disambiguation).

Geoffrey Palmer
Geoffrey Palmer performing at A Breath of Fresh Air, June 2008
Born	4 June 1927 (1927-06-04) London, England
Occupation	Actor, presenter
Years active	1958 – present
Spouse	Sally Green (m. 1963 - present)
Children	Charles Palmer, Harriet

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE (born 4 June 1927) is an English actor, known for his roles in such British television sitcoms as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.

Career

After being demobilised from the Royal Marines, Palmer drifted into theatre, joining a local amateur dramatics society because of a girlfriend. He became an 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 an actor in theatre, coming to television and public prominence later in his career. Early television appearances included a variety of roles in Granada Television's The Army Game, two episodes of The Baron and as a property agent in Cathy Come Home, a very highly influential drama documentary shown on British TV in 1966.

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 and was directed by Laurence Olivier in J. B. Priestley's Eden End. Palmer found the play so boring, however, that it put him off a stage career for good. Many of his television parts were as a stuffy, middle class buffoon, and he is known for deadpan drollery. Two sitcom roles brought him major attention in the 1970s: the hapless brother-in-law of Reggie Perrin in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and the phlegmatic Ben Parkinson in Carla Lane's Butterflies. He has continued to appear in productions written by Perrin creator David Nobbs, the latest being the radio comedy The Maltby Collection.

He starred opposite Judi Dench for over a decade in the BBC situation comedy As Time Goes By (1992-2005). During this time he also appeared with Dench in other productions: the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies where he portrayed Admiral Roebuck, and Mrs. Brown, he played Sir Henry Ponsonby to Dench's Queen Victoria.

His distinctive voice has given him a career in advertising and television voiceovers, most notably the Audi commercials in which he popularised the phrase "Vorsprung durch Technik", and as the narrator for the BBC series, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Holidays. He narrated the audiobook version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, released in 2005 as a podcast by Penguin Books. He narrates Little England. He regularly voices books for the blind.^{[citation needed]}.

In 2007 he teamed up with Silksound Books to record The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith as an online audiobook.

In December 2007, Palmer appeared in the role of the Captain in "Voyage of the Damned," the Christmas special episode of the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who (having previously appeared as different characters in the Third Doctor serials Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Mutants).

In March 2009 he joined in on a sketch with the two double acts 'Armstrong and Miller' and 'Mitchell and Webb' for Comic Relief.

Personal life

Palmer was born in London, England, the son of Norah Gwendolen (née Robins) and Frederick Charles Palmer, who was a chartered surveyor. He attended Highgate School, London. In 1963 he married Sally Green in Wilmslow. The couple have a daughter Harriet and a son, Charles, who is married to actress Claire Skinner.

Palmer lives between Great Missenden and Wendover, at Lee Common in Buckinghamshire, England. In 2011 he publicly opposed proposals for the High Speed 2 rail network which would run within 300 yards (274 m) of his home.

Awards and recognition

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama.

Appearances

Stage

• Eden End by J. B. Priestley at the Royal National Theatre (1974)

Radio

• At Home With The Snails (2001–2002)
• Les Miserables as Inspector Javert (2002)
• High Table, Lower Orders (2005–2006)
• The Maltby Collection (2007–2009)
• A Murder of Quality (2009)
• North by Northamptonshire (2011-2012)

Television

• The Army Game (1958–1960)
• The Avengers:
  • "Propellant 23" (1962)
  • "A Surfeit of H2O" (1965)
• The Saint:
  • "The Rough Diamonds" (1963)
• The Baron:
  • "Masquerade" (1966)
  • "The Killing" (1966)
• The Wednesday Play:
  • Cathy Come Home (1966)
• Doctor Who:
  • Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970)
  • The Mutants (1972)
  • "Voyage of the Damned" (2007)
• Colditz (1972)
• The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–1979)
• Butterflies (1978–83)
• Fawlty Towers:
  • "The Kipper and the Corpse" (1979)
• The Goodies (1980)
• Whoops Apocalypse (1982)
• Death of an Expert Witness (1983)
• Fairly Secret Army (1984)
• Executive Stress (1986 first series only)
• Hot Metal (1986)
• Season's Greetings (1986)
• Christabel (1988)
• Blackadder Goes Forth:
  • Episode 6 "Goodbyeee" (1989); as Field Marshal Douglas Haig
• Inspector Morse:
  • "The Infernal Serpent" (1990)
• As Time Goes By (1992–2005)
• The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (1996)
• The Savages (2001)
• Absolute Power (2003)
• Grumpy Old Men (2003–2004, 2006)
• He Knew He Was Right (2004)
• Grumpy Old Holidays (2006)
• Ashes to Ashes:
  • "Episode 8" (2008); as Lord Scarman
• The Long Walk to Finchley (2008); as John Crowder
• Poirot:
  • "The Clocks" (2009)
• Rev
  • "Christmas Special" Series 2, episode 7 (2011)

Film

• A Prize of Arms (1962)
• Ring of Spies (1964)
• O Lucky Man! (1973)
• The Honorary Consul (1983)
• A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
• Clockwise (1986)
• A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
• Hawks (1988)
• The Madness of King George (1994)
• Mrs. Brown (1997)
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
• Anna and the King (1999)
• Peter Pan (2003)
• The Pink Panther 2 (2009)

Recordings (spoken word)

• Welcome to the Pleasuredome (Fruitless Mix) (1985)

External links

• Geoffrey Palmer at the Internet Movie Database
• Selected performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol