Simon John Cadell was an English actor, best known for his portrayal of Jeffrey Fairbrother in the first five series of the BBCsituation comedyHi-de-Hi!.
Cadell was a member of the National Youth Theatre and appeared with them in the 1967 production of Zigger Zagger. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His first successes were found in the theatre in the mid to late 1970s. An early television role was in Simon Gray's 'Play for Today's in 1975 Plaintiffs and Defendants and the sequel Two Sundays both opposite Alan Bates. He then provided the voice of Blackberry in the animated adaptation of Watership Down, based on the novel by Richard Adams. Subsequently he had roles in television programmes such as Enemy at the Door, and also appeared briefly in the disaster film Meteor as a TV news reporter. He is best remembered for his role as the well-meaning holiday camp manager Jeffrey Fairbrother in the BBC situation comedy Hi-de-Hi! and for playing the disingenuous civil servant Dundridge in the screen adaptation of a novel by Tom Sharpe, Blott on the Landscape. On radio he played the elven-king Celeborn in the BBC adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He appeared in the BBC sitcom Life Without George which ran for three series. Cadell appeared in the 1991 British comedy series Singles. Other television credits include, Minder, Bergerac, The Kenny Everett Television Show and Roald Dahl'sTales of the Unexpected. He was also in heavy demand as a voice-over for television commercials. He narrated the children's television seriesBump for the BBC which is all about a baby elephant and his friend Birdie.
Personal life
In 1985 Cadell married actress Rebecca Croft, the daughter of Dad's Army co-creator David Croft. The couple had two sons.
Death
In January 1993 Cadell, a heavy smoker of up to 80 cigarettes a day, suffered a near-fatal heart attack after giving a recital with Joanna Lumley at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, in London. He returned to the stage four months after undergoing triple heart bypass surgery, but was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 1993, while being treated for pneumonia. On 6 March 1996 Cadell died at the age of 45, He is buried with his father in the Cadell family grave in Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh. The grave lies on the southern wall. Three months after Cadell's death, his best friend Jeremy Sinden, who was five weeks older than him, also died of lung cancer. For more than 30 years, Simon Cadell's father, John, had been the theatrical agent of Jeremy Sinden's father, Donald Sinden,.
