Peter Vaughan (born April 4, 1923) is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts.
He was born Peter Olm in Wem, Shropshire. Vaughan has been married twice, on the first occasion to Billie Whitelaw. His second wife is actress Lilias Walker, with whom he lives in the village of Mannings Heath, in West Sussex, having previously lived in Crawley, West Sussex.
In film, he made his debut in 1959 and continued to play small roles for several years, before gaining his first starring role in a minor picture called Smokescreen (1964). He became known for his performances on television, including supporting roles in Porridge (as "Genial" Harry Grout) and Citizen Smith (although his role in the latter series was taken over by Tony Steedman). Vaughan's role in Porridge brought him a great deal of public recognition, despite the fact that his character appeared in only three episodes and the film of the series.
In 1969 he appeared in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) in the episode "Never Trust a Ghost". In December 1972 he appeared as Mr. Paxton in the BBC television adaptation of the M. R. James ghost story A Warning to the Curious, shown as part of their annual series A Ghost Story for Christmas. Vaughan was heard as Denethor in the celebrated 1981 BBC Radio production of The Lord of the Rings.
Vaughan later attained particular acclaim for his supporting role as the Alzheimer's sufferer Felix Hutchinson across thirty years of his life in Our Friends in the North (BBC Two, 1996), a role which gained him a Best Actor nomination at the 1997 British Academy Television Awards. He played the lead character, the patriarch Billy Fox, in the television series Fox. He has also appeared in many literary adaptations, such as Bleak House (BBC One, 1986) and Our Mutual Friend (BBC Two, 1998).
Perhaps his highest-profile film performance has been as Anthony Hopkins' character's father in The Remains of the Day (1993). He was also cast in Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but had not shot any material before that project was abandoned. He had previously appeared for Gilliam in Time Bandits and Brazil. He also appeared as a memorably menacing character in Straw Dogs (1971), with Bill Murray in a film of W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge and in 1997 he appeared alongside Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone in Face. Possibly his most unusual role was as SS Oberstgruppenführer Artur Nebe in the 1994 film of Robert Harris' novel Fatherland.
In 1986, he appeared in the promotional video for Kate Bush's "Experiment IV" single. In 2007 he starred in the television serial Mobile and as Uncle Alfie in the film Death at a Funeral.
