GLYN HOUSTON

(23 October 1925 - 30 June 2019)

The Welsh-born actor Glyn Houston, who has died aged 93, was the brother of fellow actor Donald Houston, who became a popular film star, whereas Glyn generally played minor roles often of men in authority. He began his working life as a milkman then during World War II worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Company, was a gunner in the Fleet Air Arm, a docker and a military policeman. Later his brother helped him get a job with the Guildford Repertory Theatre. In 1950 Basil Dearden wrote a part for him as a barrow boy in The Blue Lamp, after which he appeared in many films, although often uncredited. He was in Trio, Wide Boy, Girdle of Gold, The Great Game, The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins and Turn the Key Softly with Joan Collins. Among the major films of the 1950s he appeared in were Mark Robson’s Hell Below Zero, Joseph Losey’s The Sleeping Tiger, Lewis Gilbert’s The Sea Shall Not Have Them, Guy Green’s Lost and the Boulting Brothers’ Private’s Progress. On television he did Colonel March of Scotland Yard, The Grove Family, Theatre Royal, How Green Was My Valley, and many other series that kept him busy throughout his career. Other films he made include The Long Arm, High Flight, The One That Got Away, A Night to Remember, A Cry From the Streets, Nowhere to Go, Tiger Bay and Jet Storm. In the 1960s he appeared in some Norman Wisdom films, as well as The Battle of the Sexes, Sink the Bismarck!, Circus of Horrors, Payroll, The Wind of Change, The Green Helmet, Flame in the Streets, Mix Me a Person, One Way Pendulum and The Secret of Blood Island. From the 1970s onwards Houston mainly confined his work to television, apart from the odd movie such as The Sea Wolves, Conspiracy, Old Scores and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in which he played Grewgious. His last TV appearances in the 1990s were in The Bill and The Sherman Plays. Glyn Houston was married to the actress Shirley Lawrence and they have two children.

MICHAEL DARVELL