1. Peter Ewart Ohm, known professionally as Peter Vaughan, was an English actor known for many supporting roles in British film and television productions.
24 Facts About Peter Vaughan
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Vaughan was born Peter Ewart Ohm on 4 April 1923 in Wem, Shropshire, the son of a bank clerk, Max Ohm, who was an Austrian immigrant, and Eva Wright, a nurse.
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Peter Vaughan said that while reciting a poem at infant school in Wellington he first experienced the applause and admiration coming from a good performance.
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Peter Vaughan adopted the stage name Peter Vaughan, though he never changed his name legally.
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Peter Vaughan made his film debut in 1959 in an uncredited role as a police officer in The 39 Steps.
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Peter Vaughan continued for several years to play small parts, including more cameos as policemen in Village of the Damned and The Victors, before gaining his first starring role, in a minor picture called Smokescreen, where he played an insurance assessor investigating a businessman's disappearance in one of the last, and best, of the old-style British B-movies.
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Peter Vaughan's performance was not well received by one critic who accused him of overacting in his role as a British agent.
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Peter Vaughan played Mr Freeman in Karel Reisz's 1980 The French Lieutenant's Woman, alongside Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
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Peter Vaughan was cast in Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but had not shot any material before that project was abandoned.
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Peter Vaughan had previously appeared for Gilliam in Time Bandits and Brazil.
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In 1998, Peter Vaughan played Bishop Myriel in Les Miserables, alongside Liam Neeson.
12.
Peter Vaughan appeared in the music video for Kate Bush's song "Experiment IV".
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Peter Vaughan became known for his performances on television, including supporting roles in Porridge and Citizen Smith as Charles Johnson.
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Peter Vaughan appeared as "The Fence" in the well known humorous advert for McVities Fruit Shortcake biscuits along with Harry Fowler.
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In 1969, Peter Vaughan appeared in Randall and Hopkirk in the episode "Never Trust a Ghost".
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Peter Vaughan starred as Billy Fox in the Thames Television series Fox.
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Historical roles Vaughan played include those of Russian foreign minister Alexander Izvolsky in the serial Fall of Eagles, British politician Thomas Inskip in the mini-series Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years, the title role in A Last Visitor for Mr Hugh Peter, and German Nazi figures Kurt Zeitzler in the miniseries War and Remembrance and Hermann Goring in the Granada Television-PBS docu-drama Countdown to War.
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Peter Vaughan appeared in many literary adaptations, such as Bleak House, in which he played the sinister lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn, and Our Mutual Friend.
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In 1986, Peter Vaughan appeared in the promotional video for Kate Bush's "Experiment IV" single.
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Peter Vaughan appeared in the BBC production of Alan Aykbourn's play 'Season's Greetings' which was broadcast at Christmas 1986, and repeated on BBC 2 some years later.
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Peter Vaughan later attained particular acclaim for his supporting role as the Alzheimer's sufferer Felix Hutchinson in Our Friends in the North, a role that garnered a Best Actor nomination at the 1997 British Academy Television Awards.
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Peter Vaughan played the clockmaker George Graham in Longitude, the TV drama adaptation of Dava Sobel's eponymous non-fiction novel about the quest for a means to determine longitude at sea.
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In 2011 Peter Vaughan starred as Michael Dodd in the BBC courtroom drama Silk.
24.
Peter Vaughan played Charles Augustus Milverton in a 1993 BBC radio dramatization of the Sherlock Holmes eponymous short story.