Timothy West obituary: One of Britain’s most versatile and dependable actors

With his actress wife Prunella Scales, who played Sybil in Fawlty Towers, he appeared in the documentary series Great Canal Journeys, in which they travelled on narrowboats together.

West played Winston Churchill three times, in From Churchill and the Generals (1979), The Last Bastion (1984), and Hiroshima (1995).

In ITV’s Brass he was the ruthless, self-made businessman Bradley Hardacre from 1982 to 1984 before returning for a third series in 1990, while in Not Going Out he played Geoffrey, the father of Lucy Adams, played by Sally Bretton.

He appeared in seven Coronation Street episodes in 2013 as Eric Babbage, while in EastEnders he played Stan Carter from 2014 to 2015.

In 2019, he played Private Godfrey in a recreation of three missing episodes of the BBC comedy Dad’s Army.

His film roles included Commissioner Berthier in The Day Of The Jackal (1973), King Francis in From Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998), and Nazi physician and war criminal Karl Gebhardt in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973).

Born in a long-forgotten nursing home on Manningham Lane in Bradford, Timothy West was the son of the actor Lockwood West, who was appearing in repertory at the old Prince’s Theatre at the time. Timothy remained in the city just long enough to graduate to solid foods, then did not return for 53 years.

“Bit of a cheek, really, calling myself Bradford-born,” he would recall.

He went to Bristol Grammar School, where his contemporaries included the future actors Julian Glover and Dave Prowse, before beginning his career as an assistant stage manager at the Wimbledon Theatre.

His early screen credits included a small role as Charles Hayter in the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (1960) and an even briefer appearance as Matrevis in Marlowe’s Edward II, the play-within-a-film in the John le Carré adaptation of The Deadly Affair, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1966.

While the theatre remained his first commitment – his TV appearances as Bolingbroke in Richard II and as Mortimer in Edward II were both adaptations of stage performances – he found his screen career gaining traction in the mid-1970s with a major starring role as Edward VII in the BBC’s acclaimed 1975 mini-series Edward the King.

His range and versatility were demonstrated in such projects as Trevor Nunn’s adaptation of Hedda Gabler in 1975, in which he played the Machiavellian Judge Brack. In a Granada adaptation of Dickens’ Hard Times he was the greedy humbug Bounderby; and he was a memorable Cardinal Wolsey in the BBC’s Henry VIII in 1979.

In the 1980s he was artistic director at the Old Vic but still appeared on TV in such series as Framed in 1992 and Smokescreen, two years later. More recently, he was in the 2005 ITV drama, Colditz.

In 1984, he was appointed CBE for his services to drama in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

He and Prunella were married for 61 years and had two sons, including the actor Samuel West. Timothy also had a daughter from his earlier marriage to the actress Jacqueline Boyer.