Anthony Valentine

Anthony Valentine was an English actor who began as a child actor. Born in Blackburn in 1939 and raised in west London, he was noticed at nine for tap-dancing in a Robin Hood stage production at Ealing Town Hall, then made his professional debut at ten in No Way Back (1949). At twelve he played a young detective in The Girl on the Pier (1953). He worked often as a child actor for the BBC, including as Harry Wharton in Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. His early stage work took in Arnold Wesker's Chicken Soup with Barley and John Osborne's Epitaph for George Dillon at the Royal Court, and he later appeared in the original Half a Sixpence. On television he played Toby Meres in Callan, Major Horst Mohn in Colditz, the title role in Raffles, and Baron Gruner in a Sherlock Holmes episode. He also wrote and directed plays and narrated documentaries. He died in 2015.