10 Facts About James Beck

Stanley James Carroll Beck was an English television actor.

James Beck appeared in a number of programmes, but is best known for the role of Private Walker, a cockney spiv, in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army from the show's beginning in 1968 until his sudden death in 1973.

In 1949, James Beck made his career acting debut in Little Lambs Eat Ivy at the Granville Theatre, Ramsgate.

James Beck concentrated on television and his early broadcast roles included Charlie Bell in an episode of Dr Finlay's Casebook, and was cast as a policeman in a 1965 episode of Coronation Street, in a storyline concerning the collapse of a house and in a 1967 episode in a storyline concerning a train crash.

James Beck appeared, uncredited, as a policeman in Gideon's Way, and was often seen in TV drama, with one-off roles in series such as The Troubleshooters and in 1968, with Peter Cushing in the episode "The Blue Carbuncle", the BBC's Sherlock Holmes.

James Beck recorded a pilot for an uncommissioned series called Bunclarke With an E, which was to be based on scripts originally written for Hancock's Half Hour and in which Arthur Lowe was to appear.

All of the location filming and studio recording for five of the planned seven episodes of Series Six had been completed when James Beck suddenly fell ill while opening a school fete in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind.

James Beck returned home and within an hour was taken to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton suffering from pancreatitis.

James Beck died three weeks later, due to a combination of heart failure, renal failure and pancreatitis, aged 44.

James Beck's death was a great shock to his fellow cast members, as well as to Jimmy Perry and David Croft.