Antony Brown(1929-2021)

Whilst still a student, Antony Ernest Brown toured German universities with his own production of Sheridan's 18th Century drama The Rivals. Joining RADA in January 1954 Antony trained for a full two years, graduating in December 1955. Then, in 1956, the London-born actor took his diploma to Stratford-upon-Avon to sign up with the Royal Shakespeare Company, at first doing small parts, although he did get the chance to tour with the company abroad, including Russia. After a spell doing both television and theatre in the 1960s, he joined the National Theatre in 1974. Confusingly, he was sometimes billed in theatre programmes (and in some tv-credits) as "Anthony Brown," but this would appear to be the result of careless printing. Reports of his death in 2001 were premature and undoubtedly caused by confusion with his newsreader namesake. Actually, the 88-year-old actor was said by his Old Vic colleagues to be still sending out Christmas cards in 2017.