John Spurley Challis was born on 16 August 1942 in Clifton, Bristol, England.
20 Facts About John Challis
2.
John Challis grew up in Epsom, after the family moved to Surrey.
3.
John Challis attended the state boarding Ottershaw School near Woking, Surrey.
4.
John Challis's father was Alec, a civil servant with the Admiralty who became secretary to the energy minister; he was a strict disciplinarian.
5.
John Challis's mother was Joan, a former ambulance driver who performed in amateur dramatics and taught drama in schools.
6.
The sitcom Bloomers, starring Richard Beckinsale, was written about John Challis's experience working at a garden centre while taking a break from acting.
7.
John Challis played Dibden Purlew in Getting Nowhere Fast from 2001 to 2004.
8.
John Challis became an honorary citizen of Serbia, where Only Fools and Horses remains hugely popular.
9.
In 2020, John Challis made the documentary Boycie in Belgrade, exploring why the show was so beloved in the Balkan country.
10.
John Challis performed many stage roles, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s and the National Theatre.
11.
John Challis appeared with Sue Holderness in Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking, Time and Time Again and How the Other Half Loves, and the National Theatre's own production of Boycie and Marlene.
12.
John Challis was featured regularly in pantomime productions in which he usually played the roguish or wicked roles, such as for example, Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Plaza Theatre, Stockport, a role he reprised in 2018 at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham.
13.
In 2013, John Challis occasionally contributed to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Live Tour as the narrator.
14.
John Challis's first wife, Jean Robertson, was a stage manager.
15.
John Challis married his fourth wife Carol Davies in Brighton in 1995 and in 1998 bought the Abbot's Lodgings at Wigmore Abbey Grange, Adforton, Herefordshire, which they proceeded to renovate.
16.
John Challis was a patron of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
17.
John Challis additionally was a patron and avid supporter of "The Rose Theatre" in Kidderminster, Worcestershire.
18.
John Challis died of cancer in his sleep on 19 September 2021, aged 79.
19.
John Challis had been diagnosed with the disease in 2019.
20.
John Challis was an avid supporter of Arsenal Football Club and the club paid tribute to him following his death.