Murray Melvin
Birthday: Born in 1932-11-30 in Hampstead, London, England, UK
Deathday: 2023-04-14
Murray Melvin (10 August 1932-14 April 2023) was an English actor and writer. He won the 1962 Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award for his role in A Taste of Honey (1961).
TV Credits
Bugs
Character:
Bugs was a British television drama series which ran for four series from April 1995 to August 1999. The programme, a mixture of action/adventure and science-fiction, involved a team of specialist independent crime-fighting technology experts, who faced a variety of threats based around computers and other modern technology. It was originally broadcast on Saturday evenings on BBC One, and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Carnival Films....
Torchwood
Character: Bilis
The exploits of a team of people whose job is to investigate the unusual, the strange and the extraterrestrial....
The Avengers
Character:
A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters)....
Starhunter
Character: Caravaggio AI
Starhunter is a Canadian science fiction television...
Bulman
Character:
Bulman is a Granada TV series which ran from 1985–1987 and followed the fortunes of the major character from the earlier XYY Man and Strangers series. Bulman was based - increasingly loosely - on the character featured in the XYY Man novels by Kenneth Royce. In this incarnation, Don Henderson appeared again as former Detective Chief Inspector George Bulman, ostensibly retired from police work and repairing old clocks but active as a private investigator, with Lucy McGinty as his assistant. The...
Clouds of Glory
Character: Robert Lovell
Dramatization by Melvyn Bragg and Ken Russell of the lives of the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge....
The Flaxton Boys
Character: Gerald Meder
...
Chillers
Character: Mr. Taylor
Based on Patricia Highsmith short stories. Displaying a sinister atmosphere, delving into the darkest depths of human nature....
Super Gran
Character: Neville Mince
Adapted from Forrest Wilson's books, the children's programme revolves around a grandmother with super powers and her arch nemesis, The Scunner Campbell....
The Genius of Mozart
Character: Lorenzo da Ponte
Looks at Mozart's extraordinary short life and revolutionary music through a distinctive mix of costume drama and documentary....
Cristoforo Colombo
Character: Padre Linares
After his proposal to sail west to the East Indies is rejected by Portugal, Columbus overcomes court intrigue in Spain to gain support for his expedition....
Midsomer Murders
Character: Bentham DeQuetteville
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty. ...
Starhunter ReduX
Character: Caravaggio
It's a time when humans have spread across the solar system, colonizing planets and building new worlds. Rule of law has broken down on this new frontier, leaving justice in the hands of dangerous men and women who offer their services for hire. Bounty hunter Dante Montana and his crew hunt criminals in deep space while searching for Dante's lost son, who was taken by a clan of outlaws years ago. The crew also struggle with their tormented pasts as dark forces change the universe around them....
The Tyrant King
Character: Gerald Gould
The Tyrant King follows three teenagers as they traverse London searching for an answer to a hidden secret. A quest fraught with drama and danger takes them to some of the capital’s most iconic landmarks and beyond (a reflection of the drama’s origin as an adventure story published by London Transport), while the action is complemented by an atmospheric contemporary soundtrack featuring, among others, Pink Floyd, The Nice, Cream and The Moody Blues. This six-part mystery thriller was Thames Tele...
Stanleyandus - a Kubrick odyssey
Character: self
STANLEYANDUS is a docuseries on Stanley Kubrick, featuring original sequences shot between 1997 and 2001. It includes about 50 re-edited interviews with collaborators, actors, critics, friends, and family members. The result is a unique encyclopaedic 'catalogue'. This unprecedented concept helps unravel the mystery surrounding Kubrick’s filmmaking experience as one of the most popular and critically acclaimed directors....
BBC Play of the Month
Character: The Dauphin
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983....
BBC Play of the Month
Character: Travelling Barber
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983....
Movie Credits
Barry Lyndon
Character: Reverend Runt
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon....
Doomsday Gun
Character: Shop Manager
Dr Gerald Bull was a genius at designing and building superguns (very large long range guns capable of shooting at ranges more than 100 miles). When an operational plan by the CIA to export sanctioned arms to apartheid-South Africa through him was exposed, the CIA denied all knowledge and he went to jail. He was later released, and moved to Belgium to start a subsidiary, of which a major project was to help Saddam Hussein build a new supergun capable of firing over 500 miles....
The Criminal
Character: Antlers
When a robbery at a racetrack goes wrong ex-con Johnny Bannion is caught and sent back to prison. He won't tell the rest of the gang where he has stashed the loot leading to violent consequences....
The Boy Friend
Character: Alphonse
When the leading lady of a low-budget musical revue sprains her ankle, the assistant stage manager is forced to understudy and perform in her place....
The Devils
Character: Father-Canon Jean Mignon
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by the sexually repressed Sister Jeanne....
A Taste of Honey
Character: Geoffrey Ingham
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual....
Set the Night on Fire: The Story of Ewan MacColl
Character: Self
Born James Henry Miller in 1915, MacColl became prominent on the folk scene in the 1950s and was also a labour activist and actor. This affectionate documentary offers insights into all these aspects of his life and features new versions of some of his songs, including The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Contributors include Billy Bragg and his widow, Peggy Seeger....
Lisztomania
Character: Hector Berlioz
In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner....
Start the Revolution Without Me
Character: Blind Man
Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigue....
The Fixer
Character: Priest
Set in tsarist Russia around the turn of the century and based on a true story of a Russian Jewish peasant Yakov Bog who was wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime - the “ritual murder” of a Gentile child in Kyiv. We witness the unrelenting detail of the peasant handyman's life in prison and see him gain in dignity as the efforts to humiliate him and make him confess fail....
Sparrows Can't Sing
Character: Georgie
Charlie returns to the East End after two years at sea to find his house demolished and wife Maggie gone. Everyone else knows she is now shacked up with married bus driver Bert and a toddler, and they all watch with more than a little interest at the trail of mayhem Charlie leaves as he goes about sorting things out....
Nutcracker
Character: Leopold
A Russian ballet dancer defects from the USSR, emigrates to England, and joins a ballet company run by a powerful, wealthy lady (Joan Collins)....
Ghost Story
Character: McFayden
Several old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Larry Dann, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark house. For one thing, he's run across several people whom he's never met. For another, they all seem to be of a different time and place....
Bill Douglas: Intent on Getting the Image
Character: Himself
A documentary exploring Bill Douglas' struggle from childhood poverty to acclaimed filmmaker of Comrades and the Trilogy....
The Village
Character: Male Librarian
A mysterious series of suicides fills the people of a small town with anxiety. Shortly before her eighteenth birthday, Kirsten sets out to solve the mystery....
Stories from a Flying Trunk
Character: Hans Christian Andersen
A magical blend of choreography, stop-motion and live action, Stories from a Flying Trunk captures the enchantment of three classic stories from Hans Christian Andersen. Conceived, written and directed by Oscar nominated Christine Edzard and featuring the dancers of the Royal Ballet, choreographed by Frederick Ashton. The Kitchen contains household objects which come to life and hold an animated conversation. The Little Match Girl updates Andersen's heart-rending tale to London's East End in t...
Gulliver's Travels
Character: (voice)
Based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Swift and built around the Lilliput and Blefuscu episode. It was made partly in live action and partly animated....
Testimony
Character: Film Editor
The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin....
Joseph Andrews
Character: Beau Didapper
Lady Booby alias 'Belle', the lively wife of the fat landed squire Sir Thomas Booby, has a lusty eye on the attractive, intelligent villager Joseph Andrews, a Latin pupil and protégé of parson Adams, and makes him their footman. Joseph's heart belongs to a country girl, foundling Fanny Goodwill, but his masters take him on a fashionable trip to Bath, where the spoiled society comes mainly to see and be seen, but drowns in the famous Roman baths. When the all but grieving lady finds Joseph's Chri...
Suspect
Character: Teddy Boy
A government team researching cures for plague find their results put on the Official Secrets list. One of their number is so incensed by this that he lets the maimed and jealous companion of a female colleague draw him into what, technically, could be a treasonable act....
As You Like It
Character: Sir Oliver Martext
Hiding out in an industrial wasteland from the murderous wrath of a regional ruler, a woman, disguised as a boy, gives wooing lessons to the edgy lad who proclaims he loves her....
The Undertaker
Character: Lenny
A meek undertaker becomes trapped in a violent world when a gangster enlists him to dispose of a growing number of corpses....
Ghost in the Noonday Sun
Character: Hamidos
A pirate crewman kills his captain after learning where he has hidden his buried treasure. However, as he begins to lose his memory, he relies more and more on the ghost of the man he just murdered to help him find the loot....
Solo for Sparrow
Character: Larkin
A group of crooks accidentally kill an elderly shop assistant while stealing the keys to the jewellery shop where she works. When his superiors think that the case is better handed over to Scotland Yard, the local detective inspector, Sparrow, decides to go solo to investigate the crime himself....
This Office Life
Character: Reporter
On arrival at British Albion, Mr Gryce felt that his lack of ambition would be completely fulfilled. There was a luncheon voucher scheme, a pension fund, paid holidays - and (apparently) nothing much doing between the hours of nine to five. Then his colleagues began to take an unhealthy interest in him. They asked questions he couldn't answer, and answered questions he hadn't asked. Only the lovely Pam made life bearable, but even she was not quite what she seemed.......
Alfie
Character: Nat
A young man leads a promiscuous lifestyle until several life reversals make him rethink his purposes and goals in life....
The Krays
Character: Newsagent
The Krays is a film based on the lives and crimes of the British gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray, twins who are often referred to as The Krays and were active in London in the 1960s....
H.M.S. Defiant
Character: Wagstaffe
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases....
Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World
Character: Photographer
The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as "part genius and part charlatan"....
The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones
Character: Blifil
Another stab at Henry Fielding's hilarious novel about the amorous misadventures of a dashing young man in 18th century England. The brilliant 1963 version, starring Albert Finney as the lusty hero, won four Oscars. Joan Collins does a great job as a Wicked Lady style highwaywoman....
Hell on Earth: The Desecration & Resurrection of The Devils
Character: Self
Hell on Earth is a documentary about Ken Russell's 1971 film, The Devils. Film critic Mark Kermode chats to Russell as well as two of the film’s stars, Georgina Hale and Murray Melvin. Also included are scenes that were cut from the released film for being too controversial....
Alice in Wonderland
Character: Chief Executioner
Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?...
The Ceremony
Character: Gendarme
A man has an affair with his condemned brother's girlfriend while plotting his escape in Tangier....
The Lost City of Z
Character: Lord James Bernard
A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it....
Smashing Time
Character: 1st Exquisite
Two young women arrive in London to make it big in show business, and become corrupted by money and fame in the process....
Shout at the Devil
Character: Lt. Phipps
During World War One an English adventurer, an American elephant poacher and the latter's attractive young daughter, set out to destroy a German battle-cruiser which is awaiting repairs in an inlet just off Zanzibar. The story is based on a novel by Wilbur Smith, which in turn is very loosely based on events involving the light cruiser SMS Königsberg, which was sunk after taking refuge in Rufigi delta in 1915....
Kaleidoscope
Character: Aimes
Barney Lincoln is a rambling gambling man who scores sensational wins at poker and chemin de fer because he has succeeded in marking the original plates for the backs of all the playing cards manufactured in a plant in Geneva and used in all the gambling joints in Europe. In his gambling depredation, Barney is spotted by Angel McGinnis, the daughter of a Scotland Yard Inspector 'Manny' McGinnis on the lookout for a man to do a job. The inspector enlists Barney's help in playing poker with a shad...
Sunday Pursuit
Character: Head waiter
Thomas Wilkins has faithfully worked his entire life on Saville Row. Suddenly he is fired by his boss Mr Gerald, who wants a younger man with new ideas. Thomas advertise under "Lonely Hearts" and receives an answer....
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Character: Doctor
A couple uses extremely black comedy to survive taking care of a daughter who is nearly completely brain dead. They take turns doing the daughter's voice and stare into the eyes of death and emotional trauma with a humour that hides their pain....
Sacred Hearts
Character: Father Power
A tough nun (Anna Massey) demands belief and obedience from convent schoolgirls (Katrin Cartlidge, Oona Kirsch) in World War II England....
Stanley and Us
Character: Self
Three hapless directors arrive in England from Italy to make a documentary on their idol. The funny thing is, they have no interviews lined up! Not to worry, these guys have a miracle or two that they call in....
Let Him Have It
Character: Secondary School Teacher
In 1950s England, slow-witted Derek Bentley falls in with a group of petty criminals led by Chris Craig, a teenager with a fondness for American gangster films. Chris and Derek's friendship leads to their involvement in the true case which would forever shake England's belief in capital punishment....
Gawain and the Green Knight
Character: Seneschal
The medieval legend of a supernatural knight who challenges the king's men to kill him....
The Emperor's New Clothes
Character: Antommarchi
Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food....
Petticoat Pirates
Character: Kenneth
Undistinguished British farce (in Technicolor and CinemaScope). Stoker Charlie (the diminutive Drake) helps 150 Wrens under Superintendent Maxine Audley, who've hijacked a frigate, HMS 'Huntress', to prove they're the equal of their male counterparts. Hardly a feminist masterpiece, but fans will relish the nightmare court-martial in which Drake plays all the parts...
Comrades
Character: Mr. Frampton's Clerk
The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages....
Slipstream
Character: Man on Stairs
In the near future, where Earth has been devastated by man's pollution and giant winds rule the planet, bounty hunter Matt kidnaps a murderer out of the hands of two police officers, planning to get the bounty himself....
The Phantom of the Opera
Character: Reyer
A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House....
The Prince and the Pauper
Character: Prince's Dresser
Tom Canty is a poor English boy who bears a remarkable resemblance to Edward, Prince of Wales and son of King Henry VIII. The two boys meet and decide to play a joke on the court by dressing in each other's clothes, but the plan goes awry when they are separated and each must live the other's life....
The Ghost of Peter Sellers
Character: Himself
A documentary about Peter Medak's unreleased film 'Ghost in the Noonday Sun', starring Peter Sellers and filmed in Cyprus in 1973....
The Diary of a Nobody
Character: Lupin Pooter
Ken Russell's silent film treatment of the 19th century comic novel by the Brothers Grossmith - George and Weedon. Starring Bryan Pringle, Avril Elgar and Murray Melvin. Adapted by Ken Russell and John McGrath. First shown on BBC2 at 10.10pm on Saturday 12th December 1964 - as part of the 'Six' strand....
Princess Caraboo
Character: Lord Motley
Bristol, England, early 19th century. A beautiful young stranger who speaks a weird language is tried for the crime of begging. But when a man claims that he can translate her dialect, it is understood that the woman is a princess from a far away land. She is then welcomed by a family of haughty aristocrats that only wants to heighten their prestige. However, the local reporter is not at all convinced she is what she claims to be and investigates. Is Caraboo really a princess?...
The Adventures Of Don Quixote
Character: Traveling Barber
A self-proclaimed "knight" and his hapless squire travel the Spanish countryside, attacking "giants" that are really windmills in his attempt to win the love of the fair Dulcinea....
David Copperfield
Character: Dr Edward Chillip
A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships....