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Bernard Archard

Bernard Archard built a career that moved across theatre, film and television, with directing also among his professional work. Born in Fulham, London, on 20 August 1916, he came from a family with deep roots in the capital. His father, Alfred James Aloysius Archard, was a jeweller, while his paternal grandfather and great-grandfather worked as clockmakers, watchmakers and jewellers in Mayfair during the nineteenth century. On his mother’s side, Archard was the grandson of James Matthew Littleboy, who served as Mayor of Fulham from 1906 to 1907. Archard trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, establishing the theatrical foundation that would underpin his life as a performer. In the summer of 1939, he appeared in an Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park production of Twelfth Night. That early credit places him in Shakespeare just before the Second World War interrupted the normal course of British theatrical life. A conscientious objector during the war, Archard worked on Quaker land. He later returned to the stage and, at the 1948 Edinburgh Festival, performed in a Glyndebourne Children’s Theatre production. It was there that he met fellow actor James Belchamber, who became his partner for nearly 60 years. Across his long working life, Archard was associated with acting for the stage and screen as well as theatre direction. Although the available outline of his career is spare, it shows a performer grounded in formal training and live theatre who also became part of British film and television. He died in 2008, having lived through an extraordinary span of change in all three forms.