Richard Marner

Richard Marner
Richard Marner as Colonel Kurt Von Strohm in the sitcom series 'Allo 'Allo!
Born	Alexander (Sacha) Molchanoff 27 March 1921(1921-03-27) Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), Russia
Died	18 March 2004(2004-03-18) (aged 82) Perth, Scotland
Other names	Alexander (Sacha) Molchanoff
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1950-2002
Spouse	Pauline Farr (1947-2004)

Richard Marner, born Alexander (Sacha) Molchanoff (27 March 1921 - 18 March 2004) was a Russian-born British actor. He was probably best known for his role as Colonel Kurt Von Strohm in the British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!.

Biography

Early life

Born in Petrograd, Soviet Russia, Molchanoff was the eldest son of Colonel Paul Molchanoff, of the Semionovsky regiment, one of two that were set up for children of children who had played with Peter the Great of Russia. In 1924, his entire family left Russia and went to Finland and then Germany, before ending up in London, where Alexander's grandmother, Olga Novikov (known in the family as "Babushka London") lived in Harley Street.

After being educated at Monmouth School in Wales, Molchanoff became an assistant to the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing, where he performed at Covent Garden. During World War II he joined the RAF, and was posted to South Africa with the Air Training Corps. After being invalided out, he changed his name to Richard Marner, and began his long successful career as a stage and film actor.

Career

One of Marner's early stage roles - as Dracula, with Howard Dean - is still regarded by some as the definitive interpretation of the role. In 1967, well before his role as the German Colonel in 'Allo 'Allo Marner played the minor and uncredited role of a German sentry in the classic war film The Dirty Dozen. His other films include Ice Cold in Alex, You Only Live Twice, The Boys from Brazil, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The African Queen and the Swiss film Four in a Jeep, in which he did all the Russian dialogue. He was also in the television movie Birth of the Beatles, as Bruno Koschmider, and in 'Allo 'Allo! as Nazi Town Commandant Colonel Kurt Von Strohm.

Latest work included guest shots in Lovejoy (1994) and the movie The Sum of All Fears (as the Russian president).

In 1991, when the then-mayor of Moscow, Boris Yeltsin, convened a "Congress of Compatriots" (an olive branch to some of the post-1917 White Russian diaspora), Marner was one of the 600 people who returned to the motherland. Despite being caught up in a coup, he stayed long enough to watch, through tearful eyes, the first Imperial Russian flag flown in Moscow since the 1920s.

He died in Perth, Scotland and left a wife, actress Pauline Farr, who retained Molchanoff as her off-stage name. Marner was fluent in Russian, English, French and German, and was also survived by a daughter - Helen - and three grandchildren.

Selected filmography

• Highly Dangerous (1950)
• Lilli Marlene (1951)
• Appointment with Venus (1951)
• The African Queen (1951)
• Top Secret (1952)
• Never Let Me Go (1953)
• Park Plaza 605 (1953)
• Mask of Dust (1954)
• The Master Plan (1955)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
• Reach for the Sky (1956)
• Ill Met by Moonlight (1957)
• Miracle in Soho (1957)
• The One That Got Away (1957)
• The Safecracker (1958)
• Ice Cold in Alex (1958)
• The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
• The Square Peg (1959)
• A Touch of Larceny (1959)

• Beyond the Curtain (1960)
• A Circle of Deception (1960)
• Very Important Person (1961)
• The Password Is Courage (1962)
• The Mouse on the Moon (1963)
• Ring of Spies (1964)
• Where the Spies Are (1965)
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
• You Only Live Twice (1967)
• The Dirty Dozen (1967)
• Tiffany Jones (1973)
• The Girl from Petrovka (1974)
• Not Now, Comrade (1976)
• The Boys from Brazil (1978)
• Avalanche Express (1979)
• Birth of the Beatles (1979)
• The Last Horror Film (1982)
• Nutcracker (1982)
• The Sum of All Fears (2002)

External links

• Richard Marner at the Internet Movie Database