Colin Gordon


Colin Gordon was a British actor born in Ceylon.

Biography

He was educated at Marlborough College and Christ Church, Oxford. He made his first West End appearance in 1934 as the hind legs of a horse in a production of Toad of Toad Hall. From 1936 to 1939 he was a director with the Fred Melville Repertory Company in Brixton. He served in the army during the Second World War for six years. His performance in 1948 as Rupert Billings in The Happiest Days of Your Life won the Clarence Derwent award.

Film career

Gordon had a long career in British cinema and television from the 1940s to the 1970s, often playing government officials. His films include The Pink Panther and Casino Royale. In the ITC series The Prisoner he portrayed Number Two twice, in "The General" and later in "A. B. and C.".
Gordon was a regular in another ITC production, The Baron, playing civil servant Templeton-Green opposite Steve Forrest. He also played the host and occasional narrator of the 1969 London Weekend Television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain, which arose from a pre-Monty Python collaboration between Michael Palin and Terry Jones; and was the Airport Commandant in the 1967 Doctor Who story The Faceless Ones. He was also in Bachelor Father and made two notable guest appearances in Steptoe and Son, once in "The Holiday" and again in the 1972 episode "Live Now, P.A.Y.E Later" as a tax inspector whom Harold and Albert manage to get drunk when he calls with a query about the old man's income tax return. In 1961 he appeared as the Doctor in "The Lift" episode of Hancock's Half Hour. In 1970 he appeared in the UFO episode The Cat with Ten Lives. He also appeared in most episodes of the ATV/ITC series Hine in 1971. He played the part of Walpole Gibb.

Selected filmography