John Woodvine, the British actor who had a long career on the stage and played a doctor in An American Werewolf in London, died Monday, his agent, Phil Belfield, announced. He was 96.
Woodvine portrayed cops on the British crime shows Z Cars from 1963-69 and New Scotland Yard from 1972-74, was the Marshal of Atrios on the 1979 Doctor Who serial “The Armageddon Factor” and showed up as the Archbishop of York on the first season of Netflix’s The Crown in 2016.
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He appeared in more than 70 stage productions at the Old Vic, the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.
For the RSC in 1970, he played Banquo alongside Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in an acclaimed Trevor Nunn production of Macbeth that was also broadcast on television, and he starred as the antagonist Ralph Nickleby in 1980’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
Woodvine received an Olivier Award in 1987 for comedy performance of the year for his turn in The Henrys at the Old Vic.
In An American Werewolf in London (1981), written and directed by John Landis, he portrayed Dr. Hirsch, who comes to the Slaughtered Lamb pub in Yorkshire to investigate an attack on David Kessler (David Naughton) and friend Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) in the moors.
Born on July 21, 1929, in South Shields, County Durham, England, Woodvine did his National Service in the RAF and worked as a clerk for a wool merchant before he trained for the stage and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1953.
He joined the Old Vic in 1954 and appeared in Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, Henry IV, Julius Caesar, Othello and Romeo and Juliet, accompanying four productions to Broadway through 1957.
After playing Detective Inspector Witty on Z Cars, he appeared in 1965 on Patrick McGoohan’s Secret Agent and for the first of several times on Coronation Street. A year later, he was in the pilot for The Saint, starring Roger Moore.
In 2005, he portrayed Frank Gallagher’s father on the Channel 4 drama Shameless.
His film résumé included John Schlesinger’s Darling (1965), Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), Richard Attenborough’s Young Winston (1972), Wuthering Heights (1992), Dragonworld (1994), Vanity Fair (2004), Miss Potter (2006) and his last onscreen credit, Enys Men (2022).
He also did a lot of work for BBC Radio in productions of An Inspector Calls, The Cabaret of Dr. Caligari, The Tempest, among many others.
Survivors include his second wife, actress Lynn Farleigh, whom he married in 1996, and his children, Mary (an actress, too) and Emma.
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