<\/p>\n
​Stanley Meadows, who has died aged 94, was a character actor familiar to viewers as heavies and villains in popular British television crime series of the 1960s and 1970s, from No Hiding Place to The Sweeney.<\/p>\n
But he also had a lengthy role in Coronation Street as Laurie Frazer, Elsie Tanner\u2019s talent agent boyfriend who employed her son Dennis as a scout, then opened the Viaduct Sporting Club. Laurie hired Elsie as a croupier at the nightclub \u2013 but she walked out on discovering that he was married.<\/p>\n
The pushy character, played by Meadows from 1963 to 1964, was far removed from the softly spoken actor from the East End of London who was privately educated thanks to a scholarship. \u201cAn agent has to be ruthless,\u201d Meadows observed. \u201cHe has to be able to sell a thing really big, to project a somewhat exaggerated image of the artist he is pushing. And I just couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a rare film role, alongside Mick Jagger and James Fox in the violent psychological drama Performance (1970), Meadows displayed his talent \u2013 often seen \u2013 for playing understated menace. As the besuited \u201cRosie\u201d Rosebloom, he is a loyal sidekick to the gang boss Harry Flowers (acted by Johnny Shannon), his benign, laidback, \u201cbeen there, seen it, done it\u201d attitude a contrast to the sadistic gangster on the run (Fox) who finds refuge in the house of a reclusive rock star (Jagger).<\/p>\n
In his 1999 book on the film, Mick Brown describes Rosebloom\u2019s place in the hierarchy of Flowers\u2019s \u201cfirm\u201d as \u201cthe regimental sergeant-major… a stickler for procedure and correctness\u201d.<\/p>\n