Kevin Whately
Kevin Whately | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Spouse | [1] |
Kevin Whately (born 6 February 1951) is an English actor.
Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and Lewis.
Biography
Whately is from Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland.[2] His mother, Mary (née Pickering-[3]), was a teacher and his father, Richard, was a Commander in the Royal Navy.[4] His maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips,[4] was a professional concert singer and his great-great-grandfather, Richard Whately, was Anglican Archbishop of Dublin.[5] The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 2 March 2009, also revealed that Whately is a descendant, on his paternal side, of Thomas Whately of Nonsuch Park, a leading London merchant, English politician and writer who became a director of the Bank of England, and of Major Robert Thompson, a pioneer tobacco plantation owner in Virginia who was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the English Commonwealth.[4]
Whately was educated at Barnard Castle School,[6] and studied drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama.[7] His brother, Frank, is a drama lecturer at a London university.[4] Before going professional, Kevin was an amateur actor at the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1970s
Career
Before turning to professional acting Whately began his working life as a folk singer, and still plays guitar, performing for charity concerts:[4] Along with other Auf Wiedersehen, Pet stars, he makes an appearance at the biennial benefit concert Sunday for Sammy in Newcastle. Before becoming an actor, he started training as an accountant.
His acting career includes several stage plays, among them an adaptation of Twelve Angry Men and film appearances in The Return of the Soldier, The English Patient, Paranoid and Purely Belter.
Whately's television appearances include episodes of Shoestring, Angels, Juliet Bravo, Strangers, Coronation Street, Shackleton, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Marple, Inspector Morse, Alas Smith and Jones, Look and Read, You Must Be The Husband, B&B, Peak Practice, Skallagrigg, The Broker's Man, Murder in Mind, 2003 Comic Relief Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Lewis, New Tricks, Who Gets the Dog?, The Children and Silent Cry (film). Whately provided one of the voices for the English language version of the 1999 claymation Children's television series Hilltop Hospital. He has also appeared in an advert for Water Aid doing a voice over.
Perhaps his most memorable television appearances were as Detective Sergeant Lewis, the down-to-earth complement to the snobbishly intellectual Inspector Morse. He reprised the role in the spin-off series Lewis, in which Lewis returns to Oxford as full Inspector. With his new partner, the Cambridge-educated Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), Inspector Lewis solves murder mysteries while trying to rebuild his life after his wife's sudden passing, and gain recognition from his sceptical new boss.
Richard Marson's book celebrating fifty years of Blue Peter comments that Whately auditioned as a presenter for the show in 1980 but lost out to Peter Duncan.
Personal life
Whately lives close to Milton Keynes, with his wife actress Madelaine Newton, who starred in 1970s BBC drama When the Boat Comes In. The couple have two children: Catherine "Kitty" Whately, born in 1983, who appeared as Kevin's on-screen daughter in the series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet for the first two seasons; and Kieran, born in 1985.[citation needed]
Whately enjoys music; he listens to Pink Floyd and Dire Straits. He supports Newcastle United Football Club on the football field, and as a cricketer admitted to Inspector Morse writer Colin Dexter that he would have liked to have played cricket professionally for England, Dexter devised the storyline for "Inspector Morse: Deceived by Flight (#3.3)" (1989) in which Sergeant Lewis had to go undercover in a cricket team to investigate drug smuggling.[4]
Notes
- ^ Marriage Index Apr 1984 Aylesbury Vol 19 Page 1137
- ^ "Hexham actor digs deep to discover a privileged past". JournalLive. 2 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
- ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f "Kevin Whately". Who Do You Think You Are?. Season six. Episode five. 2 March 2009. BBC One.
{{cite episode}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|began=,|episodelink=,|city=,|serieslink=,|ended=,|transcripturl=, and|seriesno=(help) - ^ "BBC Who Do You Think You Are?". BBC. 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
- ^ "Drama". Barnard Castle School website. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
- ^ "Some of Our Famous Alumni..." Central School of Speech and Drama website. Retrieved 2009-03-08.