John Hillerman and Simon Brimmer
Although Jonathan Higgins presents as English, John Hillerman was born in Texas and served in the US Air Force. Hillerman practiced the English accent in onstage productions in Ohio before taking the accent to Hollywood. The character we know as Jonathan Higgins began life as Simon Brimmer on TV productions of Ellery Queen; which were the 1975 TV movie Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects and the 1975-76 TV series Ellery Queen. Brimmer was an arrogant and self-assured character who used these personality traits as a foil to Ellery Queen (Jim Hutton). Hillerman says playing a snob comes easy to him.
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