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Lionel Jeffries, the much loved character actor who turned director late in his career, has died. Trained at RADA, he started his screen career with a bit part in Hitchcock's Stage Fright, and never looked back as his distinctive bald head graced The Colditz Story, The Quatermass Xperiment, Lust for Life, The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Nun's Story, Two Way Stretch (showing his gift for comedy), Tarzan the Magnificent, The Wrong Arm of the Law, The Long Ships, Harryhausen sci-fi The First Men in the Moon, You Must Be Joking, musical Camelot, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (possibly his most famous role, singing "POSH"), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and Royal Flash. He became a director with The Railway Children, a genuine and enduring masterpiece which he followed up with the cult children's film The Amazing Mr Blunden, and the lesser Wombling Free and The Water Babies. His last screen credit was on an episode of cult sci-fi series Lexx. |
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