RONALD PICKUP

(7 June 1940 - 24 February 2021)

The British actor Ronald Pickup made his stage debut as Octavius in the 1964 production of Julius Caesar at the Royal Court in London. He joined the National Theatre under Laurence Olivier at The Old Vic in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, O’Neill, O’Casey, Shaw, etc, and also contemporary works by Trevor Griffith, Tom Stoppard, John Arden and David Hare. He also toured as Lucky in Waiting for Godot and played in Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests in the West End. Ronald Pickup, who has died aged 80 after a long illness, made his television debut in Doctor Who in 1964. His first film was a version of the National Theatre’s Three Sisters with Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates. His next was Fred Zinnemann’s excellent treatment of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal in which he played the documents forger. Then there was Ken Russell’s Mahler, Tony Richardson’s Joseph Andrews and Don Sharp’s version of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Pickup appeared more on television but still made occasional films such as Zulu Dawn, the sequel to Zulu, and Nijinsky, in which he played Stravinsky. Never Say Never Again was Sean Connery’s last Bond movie, Eleni was Peter Yates’s Greek Civil War drama, and The Mission Roland Joffé's highly praised film about Spanish Jesuits, with Robert De Niro. The Fourth Protocol returned him to Frederick Forsyth’s world of spies and A Dry White Season was a thriller set in South Africa. Other TV work included episodes of Coronation Street and Downton Abbey, and he was the Archbishop of Canterbury in The Crown. His last two major films were The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, in which Pickup played the philanderer Norman Cousins. His last film is Schadenfreude directed by his son, Simon Pickup, which awaits a release. Ronald Pickup was married to the actress Lans Traverse (they met at Rada) and as well as a son, Simon, they have a daughter, the actress Rachel Pickup.

MICHAEL DARVELL