Don Henderson
Birthday: Born in 1932-11-10 in Leytonstone, London, England, UK
Deathday: 1997-06-22
Born Donald Francis Henderson in Leystonstone, 1931, Don Henderson was an English actor of stage, television and screen. He was best known for playing both "tough guy" roles and authority figures, and is remembered for his portrayal of detective George Bulman between 1976 and 1987 in a trilogy of popular Granada Television police drama series; The XYY Man, Strangers, and Bulman. Following the end of Bulman, Henderson starred as the priest Frank Kane in the BBC drama series The Paradise Club, penned by Bulman creator Murray Smith. Henderson starred in several cult and sci fi serials and films, most notably in the first Star Wars movie in which he played General Tagge, and Doctor Who and Red Dwarf. Prior to acting, Henderson was a dental technician in the army and a detective sergeant in the Essex constabulary, but he resigned when he found he had sympathy for the criminals he was obliged to arrest. He was married twice, firstly to Hilary who died in 1977, and then to the actress Shirley Stelfox, whom he met filming The XYY Man. The pair set up home in Stratford-Upon-Avon and appeared together professionally many times until his death from throat cancer in 1997.
TV Credits
Strangers
Character: George Bulman
Strangers is a UK police drama that appeared on ITV between 1978 and 1982. After the success of the TV series The XYY Man, adapted from books by Kenneth Royce, Granada TV devised a new series to feature the regular characters of Detective Sergeant George Bulman and his assistant Detective Constable Derek Willis. The result was Strangers. The series began as a fairly standard police drama series with Bulman as its eccentric lead. Its premise was that a group of police officers have been brought...
The XYY Man
Character: George Bulman
The XYY Man began life as a series of novels by Kenneth Royce, featuring the character of William 'Spider' Scott, a one-time cat-burglar who leaves prison aiming to go straight but finds his talents still to be very much in demand by both the criminal underworld and the British secret service. Scott has an extra "y" chromosome that supposedly gives him a criminal predisposition - although he tries to go straight, he is genetically incapable of doing so. Royce's original books were : The XYY Man...
Doctor Who
Character: Gavrok
The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs....
Dempsey and Makepeace
Character: Don
Dempsey and Makepeace is a British television crime drama made by London Weekend Television for ITV, created and produced by Ranald Graham. The leading roles were played by Michael Brandon and Glynis Barber, who later married each other on 18 November 1989. The series combined elements of previous series such as the mis-matching of British and American crime-fighters from different classes as seen in The Persuaders! and the action of The Professionals....
Knights of God
Character:
Knights of God was a British science fiction children's television serial, produced by TVS and first broadcast on ITV in 1987. It was written by Richard Cooper, a writer who had previously worked in both children's and adult television drama. Set in the year 2020, it showed a Britain ruled by the Knights of God, a fascist and anti-Christian religious order that came to power during a brutal civil war twenty years previously. It starred George Winter as Gervase Owen Edwards, the Welsh son of a re...
The Enigma Files
Character: Prince
The Enigma Files is a British television detective drama that ran for a single series of fifteen episodes in 1980. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Lewis is tasked with investigating unsolved crimes....
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...
Red Dwarf
Character: Rogue Simulant
The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf....
Angels
Character:
Angels is a BBC medical soap-opera which launched on 1st September 1975 and was the blue print for such medical soaps as Casualty, Holby City, plus daytime soap, Doctors. The medical soap focuses on different departments within Heath Green Hospital and was a highly successful continuing drama....
Dick Turpin
Character:
Richard O'Sullivan stars as Dick Turpin in this action-filled adventure series chronicling the exploits of England's most celebrated highwayman....
Play for Today
Character:
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration....
Warship
Character:
Warship was a popular British television drama series produced by the BBC between 1973 and 1977. The series dealt with life on board a Royal Navy warship, the fictional HMS Hero....
BBC Play of the Month
Character: Mercier
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were 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; the producer most associated with the Play of the Month was Cedric Messina. Some of the 121 episodes are missing from the archives, having been junked in the 1960s and 1970...
Dead Head
Character: Detective Inspector Malcolm
London based petty crook, Eddie Cass agrees to pick up a package and courier it across the capital. When nobody answers the door at the drop off address Eddie opens the package and finds a woman’s severed head in a hatbox. He panics and dumps it in the River Thames. Returning home Cass is kidnapped by the mysterious Eldridge and his heavies who inform Eddie that he has been framed for the murder....
Dandelion Dead
Character:
This is a dramatisation of the true story of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a solicitor and magistrate's clerk who lived in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. In 1921 he was arrested and charged with poisoning his domineering wife, Catherine, and later attempting to poison a business rival, Oswald Martin, by administering arsenic to them. At his trial, Armstrong claimed that he had bought the arsenic simply to kill the dandelions on his lawn. However he was convicted of murder and executed in 1...
Poldark
Character: Tom Carne
Period drama series about the brooding rivalry between former soldier Ross Poldark and local industrialist George Warleggan, and the two women in their lives. Based on the books by Winston Graham....
The Paradise Club
Character: Frank Kane
The Paradise Club is a BBC television drama starring Don Henderson and Leslie Grantham as Frank & Danny Kane. Two series were produced and were broadcast between 1989 and 1990. The show focuses upon two brothers, Frank & Danny Kane. Their mother, Ma Kane, is the matriarch of a criminal gang in South London, helped by her son Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club on the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from cr...
Cracker
Character: Hennessy Senior
The wise-cracking Fitz is a brilliant but flawed criminal psychologist with a remarkable insight into the criminal mind....
Annika
Character: Mr Daniels
Pete, an eighteen year old Isle of Wight deck chair attendant, meets fifteen gear old Swedish exchange student Annika. After a holiday romance, he follows her back to Sweden....
Thriller
Character: Boz Bostyne
Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. It is an anthology series: each episode has a self-contained story and its own cast. As the title suggests, each story is a thriller of some variety, from tales of the supernatural to down-to-earth whodunits....
Scorpion Tales
Character: Easterman
Scorpion Tales was a British thriller television series, originally screened in 1978. Produced by ATV, the series was transmitted on the ITV network. It lasted just one season....
Making Out
Character:
Making Out is a British television series, shown by the BBC between 1989 and 1991. The series, created by Franc Roddam, written by Debbie Horsfield, mixed comedy and drama in its portrayal of the women who worked on the factory floor at New Lyne Electronics in Manchester, tackling the personal lives of the characters as well as wider issues of recession, redundancy and retrenchment as the factory goes through various crises and take-overs. The music for the series was composed by New Order. Th...
Minder
Character: Billy Lynch
This comedy drama series featured Terry McCann, a former boxer with a conviction for G.B.H., and Arthur Daley, a second-hand car dealer with an eye for a nice little earner. Alongside his many business ventures, Arthur would regularly hire Terry out as a minder or bodyguard, later replaced by nephew, Ray Daley....
Van der Valk
Character: Ullman
Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk. Based on the characters and atmosphere of the novels of Nicolas Freeling, the first series was shown in 1972....
2point4 Children
Character: Frank
They're just your average family. Stressed mum Bill, daft dad Ben, and two troublesome teens. Plus just a few crazy ideas, escapades and mishaps. The classic 90s sitcom....
The Detectives
Character: Brother Ryan
The absurd adventures of two defective detectives, who - despite unbelievable incompetence - somehow manage to solve their cases (or be nearby when the cases are solved) and retain their jobs....
Casualty
Character: Jerry Hunter
Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives....
The New Statesman
Character: Brigadier Miljanic
The New Statesman is a British sitcom of the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the Conservative government of the time....
The Protectors
Character: Walters
The Protectors is a British television series, an action thriller created by Gerry Anderson. It was Anderson's second TV series using live actors as opposed to electronic marionettes, and also his second to be firmly set in contemporary times. It was also the only Gerry Anderson produced television series that was not of the fantasy or science fiction genres. It was produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company. Despite not featuring marionettes or any real science fiction element...
Jo Brand Through the Cakehole
Character:
Jo Brand Through the Cakehole is a British stand-up comedy television series produced by Channel X, and starring Jo Brand as the show's host. It debuted on 30 December 1993 in the United Kingdom and was broadcast on Channel 4 for three years, from 1993 to 1996....
Movie Credits
Star Wars
Character: General Taggi
Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire....
The Island
Character: Rollo
David Nau leads a band of modern day pirates who raid yachts and sail boats of people on vacation in the Caribbean. When reporter Blair Maynard and his son arrive to investigate the mystery of the disappearing boats, Nau and his band of raiders decide to induct them into their tribe....
The Trial
Character: The Flogger
Joseph K. awakes one morning, to find two strange men in his room, telling him he has been arrested. Joseph is not told what he is charged with, and despite being "arrested," is allowed to remain free and go to work. But despite the strange nature of his arrest, Joseph soon learns that his trial, however odd, is very real, and tries desperately to spare himself from the court's judgement....
The Ghoul
Character: The Ghoul
A former clergyman (Peter Cushing) in 1920s England tries to keep his cannibalistic son locked in the attic....
White Angel
Character: Inspector Taylor
Ellen Carter's career is on the rocks. She hasn't written a worthy novel since her husband went missing and she was suspected by the police of murdering him. To top it all off, she has reason to believe that her new tenant Leslie Steckler is the serial killer responsible for a number of deaths in the region. But what she doesn't know is that, in the meantime, Steckler has discovered a little secret about her......
Liberation: Between Two Fires
Character: Lord Curzon
It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told....
Liberation: Resurrection
Character: Lord Curzon
It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told....
Liberation: Beginning of the end
Character: Lord Curzon
It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told....
Liberation: Salvation
Character: Lord Curzon
It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told....
Liberation: Flood of Blood
Character: Lord Curzon
It is the story of a nation's resurrection and victory, in which the War of Independence is told....
As You Like It
Character: The Dukes
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....
Footsteps
Character: Policeman
Gemma Jones stars as a woman suffering from hyperacusis, which affects the muscles of the ears. As a result she has become highly sensitive to noise, a condition that is only exacerbated by living in a crowded boarding house....
The Secret World of Polly Flint
Character: Old Mazy
A young girl escapes her loneliness by retreating to The Magical World of Another Time, which can only be reached by using your imagination....
Miss Queencake
Character:
A tragi-comic boat movie in which Beauty and The Beast live out their own particular fairytales....
The Big Sleep
Character: Lou
Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster....
Preaching to the Perverted
Character: Commander Cope
A computer wizard infiltrates a London sex club to get evidence for a shutdown, but falls for the proprietress....
No Escape
Character: Killian
In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name....
Tank Malling
Character: Percy
Tank is an investigative reporter and jailbird, framed on scant evidence supplied by the London mob. Helen is the sensuous call-girl who offers Tank ammunition and retribution. But, retaliation is swift and brutal, in the guise of Sir Robert Knights and his equally lethal lawyer, Dunboyne. A series of hideous murders follow as the devil protects his own. Only Malling and Helen can halt the onslaught. But, for how long, and at what price?...
The Littlest Horse Thieves
Character:
When the owner of a Yorkshire coal-mine decides to mechanize to increase profits, the mine's pit ponies are scheduled to be destroyed. So, three children plan to steal them to keep them safe. But when they're caught, it's up to the mine owners and the miners themselves to decide what's right....
Danton's Death
Character: Mercier
Danton's Death is arguably the most dramatic and penetrating study of revolution ever written. Georg Büchner concentrates on that moment in 1794 when the Reign of Terror, already well established, spills over into a total blood-bath. The play, adapted by director Alan Clarke and Stuart Griffiths, both highly imaginative and closely documentary, shows how the great hero of the early phase of the Revolution, Danton, sickened by the excesses of the guillotine, which he helped to create, wants to ca...
The Baby of Mâcon
Character: The Father Confessor
Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge....
Pat and Margaret
Character: Billy
Unexpected events occur when Pat, a glamorous British-born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto-biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both women highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with an uncaring, errant mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the whereabout...
The War That Never Ends
Character: Socrates
The Peloponnesian Wars (Athens versus Sparta for twenty-seven years) told in the format of news broadcast-like monologues by Theucydides, Plato, and others....
Squaring the Circle
Character: Kuron
An account of how Lech Walesa and the "Solidarity" trade union confronted the might of Communist dictatorship in Poland....
Maigret
Character: Barge Captain
Jules Maigret, a meticulous Parisian police detective, is a famous literary character. In this film adaptation of his stories, he's trying to solve a murder of a friend, a P.I. who was looking into an industrialist and his family....
Brannigan
Character: Geef
A hard-nosed Chicago cop is sent to London to bring back an American mobster being held for extradition. Brannigan in his Irish-American way brings American law to the people of Scotland Yard but has to contend with a stuffy old London first....
Across the Andes by Frog
Character: Sgt. Major
Explorer Walter Snetterton and his party travel to the Andes to prove his theory that frogs are able to climb mountains. Due to the Cup Final the only person willing to act as guide is an elderly - but extremely agile - old lady and as Snetterton prepares to strike camp all his men desert him for the charms of the local ladies. Snetterton is never found but the frogs manage to escape and make it to Mexico City,thus proving his theory to be right....
The Wind in the Willows
Character: The Sentry
Jailed for his reckless driving, rambunctious Mr. Toad has to escape from prison when his beloved Toad Hall comes under threat from the wily weasels, who plan to build a dog food factory on the very meadow sold to them by Toad himself....
Doctor Who: Delta and the Bannermen
Character: Gavrok
The Doctor and Mel go for a holiday trip to Shangri-La aboard a Nostalgia Tours bus, only to get dragged into the battle against genocide of their fellow passenger Delta, a Chimeron Queen fleeing from the Bannermen who wish to make her species extinct....
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Character: Commander
An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits....
The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond
Character:
More than 30 years have now passed since a certain time traveling police box first materialized on our television screens, and the exploits of its various crews have enthralled audiences ever since. Here is the story of Britain's Number 1 Science Fiction programme told in order of the various actors who have played the Doctor....
Danielle Steel's Zoya
Character: Feodor
A young Russian countess escapes the 1917 revolution and, despite hardship, makes a new life for herself in America....
Regan
Character: Strip Club Heavy
Rough, tough and politically incorrect in the way that only the best 70's dramas can be, Regan was a pilot film for The Sweeney - one of the major television successes of the last fifty years. Featuring John Thaw as the irascible Detective Inspector Regan and Dennis Waterman as his loyal 'oppo' Detective Sergeant Carter, Regan was an immediate critical and ratings hit, resulting in four series of The Sweeney and two successful feature films. Jack Regan is a good copper, but his tough, intuitive...
Carry On Columbus
Character: The Bosun
Christopher Columbus believes he can find an alternative route to the far East and persuades the King and Queen of Spain to finance his expedition......
Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
Character: The Wednesday Man
Cocky cockney snooker player Billy Kid accepts the challenge of a grudge match from Maxwell Randall (the Green Baize Vampire), six times world champion; the loser will never play professional snooker again....
Callan
Character: George
David Callan, secret agent, is called back to the service after his retirement, to handle the assassination of a german businessman, but Callan refuses to co-operate until he finds out why this man is marked for death....
My Friend Walter
Character: Bertie Borrowbill
Bess Throckmorton, a farmer's daughter from Devon, encounters an ancient relative who soon reveals himself to be the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, determined to escape the Tower of London once and for all and return to Devon. When Sir Raleigh learns that a pair of dastardly brothers have designs on his ancestors' farm, he devises a plan to thwart them....
Voyage of the Damned
Character: Engineering Officer
A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival....
Brazil
Character: First 'Black Maria' Guard
Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies....
Tomorrow Calling
Character: Mervyn Kihn
A photographer hired to shoot photos of "futuristic Americana" starts having visions of an alternate reality that looks like the covers of pulp science fiction novels. An adaption of William Gibson's short story 'The Gernsback Continuum' for Channel 4....
Blanc de Chine
Character: Malcolm
Mathieu is called on by the French government to investigate murders in the Asian community of Paris. With Chinese and Vietnamese engaged in a bloody slaughterfest, the key to the mystery lies with the orphan girl who Mathieu helped to escape during the fall of Saigon in 1975. Now a beautiful young woman, Mathieu is reunited ten years later with the refugee, and together they attempt to solve the case. He uncovers a CIA plot that has carried over from the last days of the Vietnam War and that is...
Gotcha / Campion's Interview
Character: Sellors
Two stories about school. Gotcha by Barrie Keeffe: On his last day at school, a 'no hope' 16-year-old pupil holds his teachers hostage using a motor-bike petrol tank as a bomb. Campion's Interview by Brian Clark: A headmaster takes on the Education Authorities on behalf on his pupils, exposing the political pressures behind the creation of a comprehensive school....
One Day at a Time
Character: Jack
An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting...
The Prince and the Pauper
Character: Burly Ruffian
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....
Atlantis
Character: Eddie
Goff and Lytton have a dream - a canal boat of their own on which to cruise the inland waterways: The reality is the boatyard of Josh Adkins and a rusting hulk called Atlantis....
The BFG
Character: Bloodbottler / Fleshlumpeater / Sergeant (voice)
Sophie is snatched from her orphanage early one morning by the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), whom she witnesses engaged in mysterious activities. She is soon put at ease, as she learns that BFG's job is to collect, catalog and deliver pleasant dreams to children. She joins him that night, but a mean giants follow them, planning to eat the children of the world....
A Killer in Every Corner
Character: Boz Bostyne
A criminal psychologist invites three psychology students to his English countryside home to view some of his research on the criminal mind. Unbeknownst to the students, they are actually guinea pigs in a mind-control experiment he is conducting and the servants of the house are not what they appear to be....