12 Facts About Ballard Berkeley

Ballard Blascheck, known professionally as Ballard Berkeley, was an English actor of stage and screen.

Ballard Berkeley is best remembered for playing Major Gowen in the British television sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Ballard Berkeley married Dorothy Long in Liverpool in January 1929.

Ballard Berkeley served as a special constable with the Metropolitan Police during the Second World War, witnessing the Blitz at first hand, including the bombing of the Cafe de Paris nightclub.

Ballard Berkeley appeared in the film In Which We Serve and in the Hitchcock film Stage Fright.

Ballard Berkeley featured as Detective Inspector Berkeley in two episodes of Edgar Lustgarten's drama series, Scotland Yard: "Person Unknown", and "Bullet from the Past".

Ballard Berkeley portrayed another retired military man in BBC Radio 4's The Archers, taking over the role from Norman Shelley.

Ballard Berkeley had small roles in an episode of Citizen Smith, an adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and appeared once in Bless This House as a Royal Air Force Group Captain in the episode "Strangers in the Night", and in The New Avengers as Colonel Foster in the episode "Dirtier by the Dozen".

Ballard Berkeley made a brief appearance in the 1985 film National Lampoon's European Vacation which starred American actor Chevy Chase.

Ballard Berkeley played Badedas the Blue, a wizard in the radio comedy series Hordes of the Things.

Ballard Berkeley died in London on 16 January 1988, aged 83, and the film was released on 25 December 1989.

Ballard Berkeley had been playing the character of Colonel Brace-Cartwright, owner of Felchester Rovers FC, in the Radio 4 sitcom Lenin of the Rovers starring Alexei Sayle, but he died after recording the first two episodes of the series and was replaced by Donald Hewlett.