Hywel Bennett

Hywel Bennett was a Welsh film and television actor, born in Garnant in 1944, who began on stage in a 1959 production of Hamlet and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his television debut in 1964 and broke through as the nervously virginal newlywed in the Boulting brothers' The Family Way (1966), opposite Hayley Mills. The pair reunited for the thriller Twisted Nerve (1968) and the Agatha Christie adaptation Endless Night (1972). His other films included The Virgin Soldiers (1969), Loot (1970) and Percy (1971). On television he played Ricki Tarr in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and the lead in the sitcom Shelley from 1979 to 1992, and later took villainous roles such as Mr Croup in Neverwhere (1996), Peter Baxter in The Bill and Jack Dalton in EastEnders in 2003. He also appeared in Vatel (2000). He died in 2017.