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Allan Cuthbertson

Allan Cuthbertson was an Australian actor whose formal bearing made him a natural fit for officers, officials and other men accustomed to being obeyed. Born in Perth, Western Australia, on 7 April 1920, he performed on stage and radio from an early age before serving as a flight lieutenant with the Royal Australian Air Force during the Second World War and its aftermath, including service with 111 Air Sea Rescue Flight. Cuthbertson arrived in Britain in 1947 and soon appeared as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at the Boltons. His theatre career later took him to London’s West End, where his roles included Laertes in Hamlet, Aimwell in The Beaux Stratagem and Octavius Robinson in Man and Superman. One of his final stage appearances came in Emlyn Williams’s The Corn Is Green at the Old Vic in 1985. On film, Cuthbertson was frequently cast in military parts. He appeared as a harassed staff officer at the beginning of Ice Cold in Alex, played Captain Eric Simpson in Tunes of Glory and took further regimental roles in Carrington V.C. and The Guns of Navarone. In The 7th Dawn, he was the callous, officious Colonel Cavendish, while Term of Trial gave him a change of setting as a schoolteacher. Television offered an even broader field. Cuthbertson appeared in Danger Man, The Champions, UFO, The Persuaders! and Terry and June, as well as making four appearances in The Avengers. He was also a regular guest on The Morecambe & Wise Show between 1973 and 1976. His best-known comic role came in the 1975 Fawlty Towers episode “Gourmet Night,” playing Colonel Hall—a military character once again, but this time placed squarely inside the sitcom’s escalating chaos. Later work included the 1985 serial Edge of Darkness, in which he played the investigative speaker Mr Chilwell, and Michael Palin’s East of Ipswich in 1987. Across stage, film and television, Cuthbertson made authority figures a recurring speciality while proving equally at home in drama and comedy.