Terence Beesley


Terence Beesley was an English actor.

Early life

Born in London to Irish parents, he studied at the City Lit in London in 1980, and then trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career

Television

His television work included Cadfael, The Bill, Where the Heart Is, Heartbeat, Midsomer Murders, EastEnders, Casualty, Down to Earth, Plotlands, She's Out and What Remains. He starred in Peter Kosminsky's 15, The Life and Death of Phillip Knight, and played General Bennigsen in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace.

Theatre

His stage work included British theatre performances as the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III and as the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses for multi Barrymore award winner director Mark Clements and his own adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Along with Jonathan Church and Jules Melvin, he was a founder of the Triptych Theatre Company. Their first production, Jack Shepherd's In Lambeth at the Lyric Studio, received much critical acclaim.

Personal life

He met actress Ashley Jensen in 1999 when they were appearing in a production of King Lear at the Manchester Royal Exchange, and they married in Big Sur, California in 2007. They had a son, Francis Jonathan Beesley. Terrence died at the family home in Camerton, Somerset on 30 November 2017, aged 60; the news only became known on 18 December. Beesley was found unconscious in a car in his garage. An inquest in 2018 ruled that he took his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Filmography