Richard David Briers, CBE (14 January 1934 â€" 17 February 2013) was
an English actor. His fifty-year career encompassed television, stage,
film and radio.Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in
Marriage Lines (1961â€"66), but it was a decade later, when he
narrated Roobarb and Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1974â€"76) and when
he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life (1975â€"78), that
he became a household name. Later, he starred as Martin in Ever
Decreasing Circles (1984â€"89), and he had a leading role as Hector in
Monarch of the Glen (2000â€"05). From the late 1980s, with Kenneth
Branagh as director, he performed Shakespearean roles in Henry V
(1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like
It (2006).Briers was born in Raynes Park, Surrey, the son of Joseph
Benjamin Briers and his second wife Morna Phyllis, daughter of
Frederick Richardson, of the Indian Civil Service. He was the first
cousin once removed of actor Terry-Thomas (Terry-Thomas was his
father's cousin). He spent his childhood at Raynes Park in a flat,
Number 2 Pepys Court, behind the now demolished Rialto cinema, and
later at Guildford. His father, Joseph Briers, was the son of a
stockbroker, of a family of Middlesex tenant farmers; a gregarious and
popular man, he contended with a nervous disposition, and drifted
between jobs, spending most of his life as a bookmaker but also
working as, amongst other things, an estate agent's clerk and a
factory worker for an air filter manufacturer, as well as a gifted
amateur singer who attended classes at the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama. His mother, Morna Briers was a concert pianist and a drama
and music teacher, and a member of Equity, who wished for a
showbusiness career, having acted in her youth. The couple had met
when Joseph Briers asked Morna to stand in for his regular pianist for
a performance; by this time his first marriage had collapsed and six
months later they had entered a relationship. The family occasionally
received money from a wealthy relation, and Briers's maternal
grandparents paid for his education, despite not being particularly
well-off, and having lived in slightly reduced circumstances in India
before returning to England and coming to live at Wimbledon.
an English actor. His fifty-year career encompassed television, stage,
film and radio.Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in
Marriage Lines (1961â€"66), but it was a decade later, when he
narrated Roobarb and Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1974â€"76) and when
he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life (1975â€"78), that
he became a household name. Later, he starred as Martin in Ever
Decreasing Circles (1984â€"89), and he had a leading role as Hector in
Monarch of the Glen (2000â€"05). From the late 1980s, with Kenneth
Branagh as director, he performed Shakespearean roles in Henry V
(1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like
It (2006).Briers was born in Raynes Park, Surrey, the son of Joseph
Benjamin Briers and his second wife Morna Phyllis, daughter of
Frederick Richardson, of the Indian Civil Service. He was the first
cousin once removed of actor Terry-Thomas (Terry-Thomas was his
father's cousin). He spent his childhood at Raynes Park in a flat,
Number 2 Pepys Court, behind the now demolished Rialto cinema, and
later at Guildford. His father, Joseph Briers, was the son of a
stockbroker, of a family of Middlesex tenant farmers; a gregarious and
popular man, he contended with a nervous disposition, and drifted
between jobs, spending most of his life as a bookmaker but also
working as, amongst other things, an estate agent's clerk and a
factory worker for an air filter manufacturer, as well as a gifted
amateur singer who attended classes at the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama. His mother, Morna Briers was a concert pianist and a drama
and music teacher, and a member of Equity, who wished for a
showbusiness career, having acted in her youth. The couple had met
when Joseph Briers asked Morna to stand in for his regular pianist for
a performance; by this time his first marriage had collapsed and six
months later they had entered a relationship. The family occasionally
received money from a wealthy relation, and Briers's maternal
grandparents paid for his education, despite not being particularly
well-off, and having lived in slightly reduced circumstances in India
before returning to England and coming to live at Wimbledon.
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