LOUIS MAHONEY

(8 September 1938 - 28 June 2020)

The Gambian-born actor Louis Mahoney, who has died aged 81, arrived in the UK to train as a doctor. Instead he went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in the 1960s and later worked in rep at the Mercury in Colchester before joining the Royal Shakespeare, the National, the Royal Court, the Almeida and the Bridge Theatre companies. From 1962 he was one of the first black actors to appear on television in such series as Public Eye, Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Yes, Prime Minister, The Bill and Casualty, etc. His feature film work included Guns at Batasi, The Plague of the Zombies, Praise Marx and Pass the Ammunition, Live and Let Die, The Final Conflict, The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, Cry Freedom, White Mischief, Shooting Dogs and Captain Phillips. As well as being an actor, Mahoney was an activist in the theatre, a member of the acting profession’s union Equity and its Afro-Asian Committee, and co-creator of the Black Theatre Workshop and the Equity Performers Against Racism group.

MICHAEL DARVELL