Breakspear, Ruislip
The men and women cremated and/or interred at Breakspear Crematorium in Ruislip, London, England.
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The son of a naval officer who ran what were called "concert parties", Kenneth Connor made his stage debut at age two, and by 11 was performing in both a solo act and a doubles act with his brother in various revue shows. He later decided to become a serious actor rather than just a revue performer, and attended a professional music and drama school. After a six-year stint in the army, he returned to the theater as an actor, and secured quite a few roles on the stage. For all his training, though, he found his greatest success doing voice characterizations on radio comedy shows. His success there led to his being cast in the first "Carry On" film, and he went on to become one of the regulars in the long-running series. After it ended Connor did a lot of television work, and achieved another round of success as the undertaker Alphonse in the popular TV series, 'Allo 'Allo! (1982). He died of cancer in 1993.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Brian Connolly was born on 5 October 1945 in Govanhill, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Dazed and Confused (1993), Lords of Dogtown (2005) and Detroit Rock City (1999). He was married to Denise and Marilyn Walsh. He died on 9 February 1997 in Slough, Berkshire, England, UK.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Sweet, a '70s British rock band that was part of the "glam" movement, got its start in 1965 with the band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Among its members were Mick Tucker and Ian Gillan (later to join Deep Purple). Gillan left the band and was eventually replaced by vocalist Brian Connolly. In January of 1968 Connolly and Tucker left the band and formed their own, calling it The Sweetshop. Bass player Steve Priest joined them, as did guitarist Frank Torpey. The band developed somewhat of a following on the "pub" circuit, and was soon signed to a contract by Fontana Records. Since there was already an existing band called The Sweetshop, the band changed its name to The Sweet. They recorded a single, "Slow Motion", but it went nowhere. Fontana dropped them and Torpey left the band.
They kept playing for the next few years, building a following and going through several personnel and management changes and doing some recording, but they remained hitless. In 1971 they finally had a hit with "Funny Funny". Tensions had been building with their songwriting/management team, and the band was unhappy with the "bubble-gum" image they were being cast in and their reputation as just a lightweight pop band. In 1972 they had another hit with "Coco" and a bigger one with "Little Willy", which hit #3 on the US charts. In 1973 the band raised eyebrows with a performance at the Palace Theater in Kilmarnock, UK, during which the audience reaction was so hostile--apparently they weren't expecting the band to appear in lipstick, eye makeup and the other accouterments of the "glam" movement--that bottles were thrown at the band and they had to be rushed offstage. That incident didn't seem to adversely affect the band's record sales, though, and they soon released one of their biggest hits, "Ballroom Blitz".
In 1974 the band and their producer decided to part with the songwriting/management team that had guided the band for several years, one of the reasons being they wanted more artistic control over the band's career, which they didn't believe they were getting. They recorded several more albums after the departure, including "Desolation Boulevard", containing "Fox on the Run", which became a hit single and, unlike their other hits, was actually written by the band.
Looking for a change, the band split from its longtime label, RCA, in 1977 and signed with Polydor Records. Their first album for the label, "Level Headed" in 1978, was a major change in the band's sound, with its richer, fuller and complex orchestrations--one of its songs, "Love Is Like Oxygen", often caused listeners who heard it on the radio to mistake it for an Electric Light Orchestra song.
The band finally toured the US in 1978, but as an opening act for Bob Seger rather than on their own card. In 1979 Brian Connolly left the band, due to ill health and an increasingly severe alcohol problem. The band recorded several more albums, but none were "chartbusters", and in 1981 they disbanded. In 1985 original members Scott and Tucker reformed the band with new personnel. The new band has stayed together, with various personnel changes, ever since.
Founding member Brian Connolly died of liver failure in 1997 and Mick Tucker died in 2002 from leukemia.Only Brian Connolly from The Sweet was cremated here.- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Morris Barry was born on 9 February 1918 in Potterspury, Northamptonshire, England, UK. He was a producer and director, known for The Common Room (1958), Compact (1962) and Spy Trap (1972). He was married to Sally Lahee. He died on 20 November 2000 in Merton, London, England, UK.- A beloved British comedienne, well known for her work on television and radio, Pat Coombs began her career in the mid 1950s, having formerly worked as a nursery school assistant.
A "foil" for top comedians including Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse and Peggy Mount she reached the height of her fame in the 1970s in a succession of long-running television series and as a 'celebrity' in numerous game shows.
In the 1990s she joined the cast of EastEnders (1985) as Brown Owl Marge Green and played Pru in Noel's House Party (1991). In the mid 1990s she was diagnosed with the bone disease Osteoporosis but continued to work until the end of her life, recording a final installment of the radio series "Like They've Never Been Gone" (with June Whitfield and Roy Hudd) in February 2002.
A lovable lady, Pat Coombs, who never married (although came close twice), died at Denville Hall, the actor's retirement home, on 25 May 2002. She was 75 years old.Cremation location - Actress
- Writer
Sweet-faced, gentle-voiced veteran British actress Dulcie Gray's demure career is often linked with that of her late actor/husband Michael Denison, with whom she appeared frequently on stage, TV and in films in over a hundred projects for nearly four decades.
She was born Dulcie Winifred Catherine Bailey in British Malaya (now Malaysia), on November 20, 1915, the daughter of a lawyer. She was sent off to boarding school in England at quite an early age. Originally interested in art and dance until the lure of the theatre, she worked at one time as a governess. Dulcie attended the Webber Douglas Drama School where she met future husband Denison, whom she married in 1939. Making her professional stage debut that same year in "Hay Fever," she gained repertory theatre experience between the years 1940 and 1941.
Dulcie made an insignificant film debut in an uncredited part in the Welwyn Studio comedy Banana Ridge (1942), but stayed focused on theatre, particularly in Shakespeare's plays -- "Twelfth Night" (as Maria), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (as Hermia) and "The Taming of the Shrew" (as Bianca). She won London stage stardom after making her West End debut as "Alexandra" in a production of "The Little Foxes" starring Richard Attenborough.
Dulcie earned a great stage success as waitress "Rose" in "Brighton Rock" (1943), which led to a film contract with Gainsborough Studios. Although she lost out playing the waitress role when "Brighton Rock" was transferred to film, she went on to grace a host of lady-like melodramas for the studio. She began with small roles in both Two Thousand Women (1944) and Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) supporting leading ladies Phyllis Calvert and Patricia Roc. She then went on to support Margaret Lockwood in A Place of One's Own (1945) before sharing the lead with Calvert and Anne Crawford in the meller They Were Sisters (1945) in which she played the passive sibling at the mercy of a cruel, sadistic husband James Mason.
Dulcie continued to rise gracefully in the film ranks with features such as the crime drama Wanted for Murder (1946) opposite Eric Portman and Derek Farr; the social drama A Man About the House (1947) as a concerned sister to Margaret Johnston; and the psychological drama Mine Own Executioner (1947) opposite Burgess Meredith. She also shared the screen with husband Michael in such vehicles as My Brother Jonathan (1948), The Glass Mountain (1949), The Franchise Affair (1951), Angels One Five (1952) and There Was a Young Lady (1953), usually to generous reviews.
In between times, the actress would remain royal to the stage, appearing in scores of plays, including "Dear Ruth" (title role), "Tea and Sympathy," "South Sea Bubble" and "The Seagull," With Michael she appeared in a host of theatre vehicles such as "Queen Elizabeth Slept Here," "The Four Poster," "Private Lives," "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "Let Them Eat Cake," "Candida," "Heartbreak House," "The Royal Gambit," "An Ideal Husband," "The Wild Duck," "The Clandestine Marriage," "The First Mrs. Fraser" and "The Clandestine Marriage."
In the mid 1950's, Dulcie began to focus on TV with roles in such anthologies as "BBC Sunday Night Theatre," "Somerset Maugham Hour" and "London Theatre." Like her husband, the theatre was her first love and true calling and she would remain committed to the stage for most of her career, making relatively few films in her later life. Dulcie later turned to writing, authoring 24 mystery books, most of which involved intrepid sleuth Inspector Cardiff.
She earned TV success back in England with Howards' Way (1985) (in which Michael had a recurring role) - a major hit in the late '80s. The couple was awarded Commander of the British Empire in 1983. Late in life, they made their Broadway debut together in "An Ideal Husband" in 1996. Following Michael's death from cancer two years later in 1998, Dulcie continued in the theatre playing delightfully sweet old ladies in such enjoyable fare as "The Ladykillers" (1999) and "The Lady Vanishes."
Dulcie would be the subject of the TV tribute program This Is Your Life (1955) on two separate occasions, in 1973 and 1995. She was a guest for other subjects four other times. She passed away from bronchial pneumonia just a few days before her 96th birthday on November 15, 2011.She is listed as cremated here but her husband, Michael Denison, was interred elsewhere.- Actress
- Soundtrack
British character actress, best known as Fanny La Fan in the long-running sit-com 'Allo 'Allo. She continued to act until her eighties before spending her final years living at Denville Hall, the actors retirement home in Middlesex.- Doris Hare was born on 1 March 1905 in Bargoed, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for On the Buses (1969), Second Best (1994) and The Avengers (1961). She was married to John Fraser Roberts. She died on 30 May 2000 in Denville Hall, Northwood, Hillingdon, London, England, UK.Cremation location
- Actress
- Script and Continuity Department
- Writer
Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in several of his films, also giving her a small part in Intolerance (1916). Bessie became popular with audiences and worked with Douglas Fairbanks in Reggie Mixes In (1916) and William S. Hart in The Aryan (1916). She then moved to Vitagraph and starred in a number of comedy-dramas. In the 1920s she began to act in more mature roles, such as Those Who Dance (1924), and also began working on the stage. She performed the first screen "Charleston" dance in The King on Main Street (1925), and gave one of her best performances in Dress Parade (1927). When sound movies came into vogue, she made a number of them and received an Academy Award nomination for The Broadway Melody (1929). By 1931, however, her career was over. She moved to England in 1935 and entertained the troops during World War II. By the 1950s she started playing small roles in movies such as No Highway in the Sky (1951). She played in a handful of low-budget films from the 1950s through the 1970s. In the 1980s she appeared in the big-budget Ragtime (1981) which starred James Cagney, and later that year in Reds (1981) which starred Warren Beatty.Plot: Niche 30BB. A small plaque marks the spot under a cedar tree where her ashes are buried.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Born to a huge, poor family in Soho in London's West End, Jessie Matthews became a big stage star in the late 1920s and 1930s, enjoying some crossover success in musical films. Her career never quite relaunched after the war, though, but she staged a comeback when she replaced the lead actress in the radio soap "Mrs Dale's Diary" in the 1960s. Her life was blighted by breakdowns of relationships and her own struggles with bad health and insecurity, and she wound up, amazingly, buried in an unmarked grave (only rectified after a TV documentary in the late 1980s brought this to light--beg, steal or borrow a copy of BBC's Timewatch (1982) documentary series episode "Catch A Fallen Star"). An amazing life.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born Margaret Rose Mount in Essex, England, she went to work as a secretary in her early teens after the death of her father, despite her early desire to enter the theatre. It would be almost 15 years before she landed a role with the Hanson Players, when she played the part of an eccentric guest in 'The Sleeping Prince.' She stayed with the company for three years, and became known for her imposing and impressive voice. She originated one of her best known roles, the formidable battleaxe, Emma Hornett, in 'Sailor Beware' with her repertory troupe in 1953, and reprised the role on the West End, the role making her a star. She made her film debut in the screen version a year later: it was known as 'Panic in the Parlor' in the US. In 1958 she appeared in 'The Adventures of Mr. Pastry' on British television, before appearing as another popular harridan role in 'The Larkins' that same year on ITV. In 1960 she tackled Shakespeare at the Old Vic, taking the role of the Nurse in 'Romeo and Juliet' to excellent reviews. For the next two decades she split her time between the stage and various television series which included 'Winning Widows' from 1961 to 1962, the 1966 to 1968 series 'George and the Dragon,' and 'Lollipop Loves Mr Mole' from 1971 to 1972. Additionally she appeared in such films as 'The Naked Truth' in 1957, 'Ladies Who Do' in 1963, and 'Oliver!' in 1968. In the 1980s she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and much of her later work was on stage, although she did appear in the cult television series, 'Doctor Who' in 1988's 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy' episode. In 1996 she was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to her art. In her later years she lost her sight, forcing her retirement, and later suffered a series of strokes. She died at an actors' retirement home in Northwood, Middlesex at the age of 86.- The phrase has now been enshrined in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. "The time is a quarter to two," the announcer would intone. "This is the BBC Light Programme for mothers and children at home. Are you ready for the music? When it stops, Daphne Oxenford will be here to speak to you." "The music" - the Berceuse from Faure's Dolly Suite - was the signal for an audience of pre-school children across the country to settle down. Then, as a regular storyteller on the show from 1950 until 1971 (others were Julia Lang and Dorothy Smith), Daphne Oxenford would read the story of the day. "Few radio memories come as misty-eyed as this," noted the radio historian Paul Donovan. But Daphne Oxenford also appeared on television - notably in early episodes of Coronation Street. Between 1960 and 1963 she played Esther Hayes, making her debut in episode two. Although the character was a spinster with a criminal brother, she thought the role dull and left after a couple of years, finally returning for guest appearances in 1971 and 1972, when she was last seen at the wedding of Ernest Bishop to Emily Nugent. For 26 years Daphne Oxenford was also a regular voice on What the Papers Say, Granada Television's irreverent weekly survey of the British Press, in which she was required to articulate excerpts from publications ranging from the tabloids to The Daily Telegraph, often in assumed voices. The daughter of an accountant, Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford was born on October 31 1919 at Barnet, north London. From school she trained at the Embassy School of Acting in Swiss Cottage, later the Central School of Speech and Drama, under Sybil Thorndike's sister Eileen. During the war she worked briefly in a bank and later as a censor, but hated having to read people's private correspondence and was relieved to join ENSA entertaining troops and, after VE-Day, spending time in Germany broadcasting for radio. Later in 1945 she appeared with Sonnie Hale and Nellie Wallace in the revue That'll Be The Day. Her first radio engagement was in Let's Join In! for schools radio in 1947, followed in 1949 by her television debut in Oranges and Lemons, a show in which she had worked at the Lyric (Hammersmith) and Globe Theatres. She also appeared in a television adaptation of Tuppence Coloured, the stage revue in which she had worked with Joyce Grenfell and Max Adrian at the Lyric and Globe in 1947. Although her regular radio work with Listen With Mother occupied her from 1950, Daphne Oxenford continued to develop her stage career. She had roles in productions at the Library Theatre, Manchester, of The Happiest Days Of Your Life, in which she was Miss Gossage, the games mistress played in the later film version by Joyce Grenfell, and Candida (both 1955). In 1969 she appeared in Spring And Port Wine and Relatively Speaking at the same venue. In 1979 she played Violet in a revival of TS Eliot's The Family Reunion, starring Edward Fox, at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, and at the Vaudeville when it transferred to the West End the following year. She appeared as Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest at the Nottingham Playhouse in October 1990, and returned to Manchester to play Emmy in The Doctors' Dilemma at the Royal Exchange in 1991. The following year, at the Library Theatre, she was Ethel Thayler in a stage version of the film On Golden Pond. From 1956 Daphne Oxenford made regular television appearances with her friend Joyce Grenfell in the comedienne's sketch show Joyce Grenfell Requests The Pleasure. She was the mother in John Mortimer's autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father (1969), and throughout the 1970s and 1980s appeared in numerous comedy series with Jimmy Tarbuck, Les Dawson and Dick Emery, dramas in the Play For Today slot and popular sitcoms including Some Mothers Do Have 'Em, Rising Damp and Man About The House. She played Mrs Patterson, the village grocer, in To The Manor Born (1979-81). She continued to make cameo appearances throughout the 1980s and 1990s in television series such as The Bill, Brookside and Casualty. In 2002 she played the Queen Mother in an American television biopic about the life of Prince William. Although she looked the part, she was dismayed by some of the lines, protesting that the Queen Mother would never have said "when the chips are down". However she was told that American audiences needed to comprehend the dialogue. Daphne Oxenford's feature film credits included parts in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), That'll Be The Day (1973), and as Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great And Small (1974). She married, in 1951, David Marshall. They lived in Altrincham, Cheshire, until 2001 when they moved to Essex. After her husband's death in 2003 she moved to the actors' retirement home at Denville Hall, Northwood, from where she continued to do occasional television jobs, taking roles in The Royal (2003), Midsomer Murders (2004), Heartbeat (2004-05), and Doctor Who (2008). She lived until the age of 93.
- Annette Kerr was born on 2 July 1920 in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for The Avengers (1961), The Golden Age (1967) and 2point4 Children (1991). She died on 23 September 2013 in Denville Hall, Northwood, Hillingdon, London, England, UK.
- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
British actress Dame Diana Rigg was born on July 20, 1938 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. She has had an extensive career in film and theatre, including playing the title role in "Medea", both in London and New York, for which she won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Rigg made her professional stage debut in 1957 in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959. She made her Broadway debut in the 1971 production of "Abelard & Heloise". Her film roles include Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968); Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper (1981); and Arlene Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982). She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC miniseries Mother Love (1989), and an Emmy Award for her role as Mrs. Danvers in the adaptation of Rebecca (1997). In 2013, she appeared with her daughter Rachael Stirling on the BBC series Doctor Who (2005) in an episode titled "The Crimson Horror" and plays Olenna Tyrell on the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011).
From 1965 to 1968, Rigg appeared on the British television series The Avengers (1961) playing the secret agent Mrs. Emma Peel. She became a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond's only wife, opposite George Lazenby. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the 1988 Queen's New Years Honours for her services to drama. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) at the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.
Dame Diana Rigg died of lung cancer on September 10, 2020, she was 82 years old.- Actor
- Animation Department
- Additional Crew
Sir Ian Holm was one of the world's greatest actors, a Laurence Olivier Award-winning, Tony Award-winning, BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated British star of films and the stage. He was a member of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company and has played more than 100 roles in films and on television.
He was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on September 12, 1931, in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents who worked at the Essex mental asylum. His mother, Jean Wilson (née Holm), was a nurse, and his father, Doctor James Harvey Cuthbert, was a psychiatrist. Young Holm was brought up in London. At the age of seven he was inspired by the seeing 'Les Miserables' and became fond of acting. Holm studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1950 to the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he emerged as an actor whose range and effortless style allowed him to play almost entire Shakespeare's repertoire. In 1959 his stage partner Laurence Olivier scored a hit on Ian Holm in a sword fight in a production of 'Coriolanus'. Holm still had a scar on his finger.
In 1965 Holm made his debut on television as Richard III on the BBC's The Wars of the Roses (1965), which was a filmed theatrical production of four of Shakespeare's plays condensed down into a trilogy. In 1969 Holm won his first BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor for The Bofors Gun (1968), then followed a flow of awards and nominations for his numerous works in film and on television. In 1981, he played one of his best known roles, Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), for which he was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In the late 1990s, he gave a highly-acclaimed turn as the lawyer, Mitchell, in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and was subsequently cast in a number of high-profile Hollywood films of the next decade, playing Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element (1997), Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), and Professor Fitz in The Aviator (2004), as well as Zach Braff's character's father Gideon in Garden State (2004). His last non-Hobbit film role was a voice part as Skinner in Ratatouille (2007).
Ian Holm had five children, three daughters and two sons from the first two of his four wives and from an additional relationship. In 1989 Holm was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and in 1998 he was knighted for his services to drama. He died in London in June 2020.- Distinguished Devon-born British actress, acclaimed for her commanding performances on the classical stage. Jefford did her initial training at the Hartly-Hodder School of Speech and Drama and graduated from RADA in 1949. Following her professional acting debut that same year, she spent a year on the repertory stage before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon where her roles included Calpurnia in "Julius Caesar", Desdemona in "Othello" (both opposite Anthony Quayle) and Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" (opposite Keith Michell as Petruchio). In 1956, Jefford moved to the Old Vic and put her extensive repertoire to good use, headlining in a one-woman show entitled "Heroines of Shakespeare". In the course of her lengthy theatrical career, the charismatic actress relished every opportunity to tackle diverse and complex characters, from Cleopatra and Joan of Arc to Hedda Gabler and Gwendolen Fairfax. In 1965, she reputedly became the youngest recipient of an OBE for services to the theatre at the age of 35. As late as 2002, she appeared as Queen Margaret opposite Kenneth Branagh in Richard III at the Crucible in Sheffield, eliciting an appreciative review from The Guardian which described Jefford as "one of the greatest of Shakespearean actors" who played her part with "Grecian grandeur ".
Despite some early TV work, Jefford's film career did not rise to the same lofty heights and only began when she was already in her mid-thirties (then playing Molly Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses (1967)). Her rather infrequent later big screen appearances tended to be in off-beat roles: a vampiric countess in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire (1971), Magda Goebbels in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), the coldly self-righteous Mrs. Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and an eccentric, wheelchair-bound German baroness in Roman Polanski's thriller The Ninth Gate (1999). For the small screen, Jefford guested in episodes of The House of Eliott (1991), Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987) and Midsomer Murders (1997). Between 1950 and 2003, she also lent her voice to many BBC radio adaptations of classic plays.Ashes are interred there - Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Actor
Barry Cryer was born on 23 March 1935 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for The Stanley Baxter Show (1963), Tommy Cooper (1969) and The Russ Abbot Show (1986). He was married to Theresa Margaret 'Terry' Donovan. He died on 25 January 2022 in Northwick Park, Harrow, London, England, UK.