Roy Kinnear - Career

Career

In the 1950s Kinnear began a career in repertory theatre, when he appeared in a show at Newquay; and in 1959 he joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, performing in both the 1960 play and 1963 film of Sparrows Can't Sing. He continued to work on stage and radio before gaining national attention as a participant in the television show That Was The Week That Was. He later appeared in many films and UK TV shows including comedies Doctor at Large, Man About the House, George and Mildred, The Dick Emery Show (as the long suffering dad to Emery's gormless bovver boy character, Gaylord) and starred in Cowboys, a sitcom about builders. His best-known films are those he made with director and close friend Richard Lester: Help!, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, How I Won the War, The Bed-Sitting Room, and the Musketeer series of the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared, along with Christopher Lee in the Hammer Horror film Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970). He played the father of spoiled rich girl Veruca Salt in the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), an adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He guest starred in The Goodies' episode "Rome Antics", in which he appeared as the Roman Emperor. He narrated and provided voices for the stop-motion children's television show Bertha. He appeared in two music videos for Mike + The Mechanics ("All I Need Is a Miracle" and "Taken In") as the band's manager, the former of which saw him reunited with his Help! co-star Victor Spinetti.

He narrated Towser and Bertha, voiced Pipkin in the 1978 film Watership Down and voiced Texas Pete's henchman Bulk in SuperTed (also with Victor Spinetti who also voiced the evil Texas Pete).

Kinnear's name cropped up regularly on the stage; in his later life he appeared in productions such as The Travails of Sancho Panza - playing the title role, and in The Cherry Orchard, in 1985. In 1987 Kinnear starred in the ITV sitcom Hardwicke House, but the show caused such a storm of protest it was cancelled after just two episodes.

His final completed roles was were in A Man for All Seasons (1988) a made-for-television film directed by and starring Charlton Heston, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave, and as a patient in the BBC1 hospital drama Casualty. Following his sudden death in September 1988, that episode was postponed. It finally aired in August 1989.