Willoughby Goddard

Willoughby Goddard was an English actor whose stout build made him a familiar face on television and in films for forty years. He was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire. He took the part of Mr. Bumble in a 1962 TV adaptation of Oliver Twist and in the original Broadway staging of the musical Oliver!. In the West End, he was the first actor to play Cardinal Wolsey in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. On television he played the villain Landburgher Gessler in The Adventures of William Tell, which ran 39 episodes in 1958 and 1959, and Sir Geoffrey in The Man in Room 17, a series of 13 black-and-white episodes broadcast in 1965 and 1966. He appeared in The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder as Sir Jason Toovey, head of the Department of Public Prosecutions; the series had 16 episodes across 1969 and 1971. He retired in 1987, and he died in 2008.