SHANE BRIANT

(17 August 1946 - 27 May 2021)

The London-born actor and novelist Shane Briant, who has died aged 74, originally studied law at Trinity College, Dublin. However, he decided to become an actor and appeared as Hamlet in an Irish production of Shakespeare’s play. He had a successful career as an actor in films and on television, and was the author of eight novels. On stage he was in John Peacock’s Children of the Wolf, based on the Romulus and Remus legend, with Yvonne Mitchell, presented by the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1971. Of all his television and cinema work Briant will be remembered mainly for his appearances in four Hammer horror films. The first was Peter Collinson’s Straight On Till Morning (1972) in which a girl (Rita Tushingham) gets involved with a nice young man with the face of a blond angel (Briant) who is actually psychotic. Then came Peter Sykes’ Demons of the Mind, with Robert Hardy as a widower who keeps his children (Briant and Gillian Hills) captive for having incestuous thoughts. He then had a part in Brian Clemens’ Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter and finally Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) directed by Terence Fisher in which he played Simon Helder, a young doctor helping Peter Cushing’s Baron to invent a new creature (David Prowse). He also made other films, including Hawk the Slayer with Jack Palance, The Mackintosh Man with Paul Newman, and was Sir Clifford in Just Jaeckin’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981) with Sylvia Kristel as Lady C. On television he played the title part in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973) and was Norma in The Naked Civil Servant with John Hurt. In the early 1980s Shane Briant moved to Australia with his wife (Wendy Lycett) and made most of his other films either there or in New Zealand. Still to come is Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein in which Briant repeats his role as Dr Simon Helder from the 1974 Hammer film. It was his last performance.

MICHAEL DARVELL