Hugh Lloyd - Life

Life

Hugh Lloyd was born in Chester, Cheshire, England and went to school at the King's School, Chester. Upon leaving school he spent two years as a newspaper reporter on the Chester Chronicle.

His first professional acting appearance was with ENSA and he worked in repertory theatre until 1957, when he made the first of 25 appearances on the television series Hancock's Half Hour. Many years after its first transmission, he would still be remembered as the character in the episode entitled The Blood Donor in which he forgets to return Tony Hancock's wine gums.

He appeared with Terry Scott in the series Hugh and I and The Gnomes of Dulwich; with Peggy Mount in Lollipop Loves Mr. Mole; in Jury and You Rang M'Lord?. He created the series Lord Tramp (1977), written by Michael Pertwee, in which he also starred. The Comedy Playhouse special, Hughie, in which he starred as a recently-released prisoner following the ending of Hugh and I, was unsuccessful.

Television plays in which he appeared include She's Been Away (starring Peggy Ashcroft); The Dunroamin Rising; A Matter Of Will (with Brenda Bruce); and a number of Alan Bennett plays, notably A Visit From Miss Protheroe (with Patricia Routledge), Say Something Happened (with Julie Walters and Thora Hird), and Me, I'm Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. He played Goronwy Jones in the Doctor Who episode "Delta and the Bannermen" and appeared in numerous television light entertainment shows, including Victoria Wood, Jimmy Cricket and Babble Quiz.

On the West End stage, Lloyd spent three seasons at the Windmill Theatre; a year at the Strand Theatre in When We Are Married; two years in No Sex Please, We're British at the Strand; and at the Lyric Theatre in Tonight at 8:30. He was part of the Royal National Theatre company under Ian McKellen, in The Critic, The Cherry Orchard and The Duchess of Malfi. He also performed in over twenty pantomimes.

Lloyd met his fourth wife, journalist Shan Lloyd, at Allen's restaurant in London's West End, in 1978. Lloyd, who was in his fifties at the time, had been married and divorced three times before meeting Shan. In his autobiography, Hugh Lloyd described his future wife as "a scatty, blondehaired Fleet Street tabloid journalist". Hugh and Shan married in 1983. The couple moved to Worthing in 2003 and remained married until his death in 2008. Shan Lloyd died in December 2008, just six months after Hugh Lloyd.

Lloyd was awarded an MBE in the 2005 New Year Honours List for his services to drama and charity. Lloyd died in 2008 at his home in Dolphin Court, Grand Avenue, West Worthing.