ANTON RODGERSAnton Rodgers, who died on 1 December, 2007, was a prolific and versatile actor with a string of roles to his credit, ranging from television comedy to West End theatre and musical cinema. He also enjoyed a successful directorial career.The entertainer was best known for his roles in the popular sitcoms Fresh Fields and May to December and also appeared alongside a host of British talent in Scrooge (1970). His other notable film credits included The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988).Mr Rodgers, who was born at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, on 10 January, 1933, began acting at a young age, making his professional debut at the age of 14 in a Royal Opera House production of Carmen. In 1948, he toured as Pip in Great Expectations and had the title role in The Winslow Boy (1949).He trained in London at the Italia Conti Academy and then the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and began specialising in musical comedy. He had roles in the West End in The Boy Friend and The Crooked Mile at the end of the 1950s and showed further talent for song and dance in fringe revues.He briefly moved away from the musical, playing a sadomasochist in John Osborne’s dark comedy Under Plain Cover (1962) and then played with Harry Secombe in a 1963 musical adaptation of Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. More serious roles in Henry V and Waiting for Godot followed.By the end of the decade he had begun directing in the theatre. The 1969 series of mini-plays on the subject of marriage, We Who Are About To…, opened at Hampstead Theatre and moved to the West End as Mixed Doubles within a year.He had also been getting regular work on television, appearing in shows such as The Prisoner, The Saint, Sherlock Holmes and Gideon’s Way. 1965 saw his first major role in a film with the crime caper Rotten to the Corps.In the acclaimed Christmas musical Scrooge, which saw Albert Finney cast in the lead role, Mr Rodgers was among the cast members who sang the Oscar-nominated song Thank You Very Much whilst dancing on the title character’s grave.His theatre credits in the 1970s included Forget-Me-Not Lane (Greenwich and Apollo, 1971), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Greenwich, 1975) and Gaslight (Criterion, 1976). He also directed versions of The Taming of the Shrew (Northcott, Exeter, 1970) and Death of a Salesman (Oxford Playhouse, 1975).Fresh Fields began in 1984 and ran for three years and 27 episodes. Mr Rodgers played William Fields opposite his screen wife Hester (Julia McKenzie).The popular BBC sitcom May to December was on the air between 1989 and 1994 and saw Rodgers play a 50-something solicitor in a relationship with a younger woman.More recent TV credits included providing the voice of a polar bear in the children’s cartoon series Noah's Ark and roles in the ITV series Midsomer Murders and Where the Heart Is. He also played the Duke in the big screen adaptation of The Merchant of Venice (2004) which starred Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.He was married twice and had four sons and a daughter. He died aged 74 and was survived by all his children and his second wife, the actress Elizabeth Garvie, whom he had met while filming the 1982 series Something In Disguise.
Keep me informed of updates
