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An oddly fascinating bloke with prominent bony cheeks and rawboned figure, Peter William (Pete) Postlethwaite was born on February 16, 1946 and was a distinguished character actor on stage, TV and film. Growing up the youngest of four siblings in a Catholic family in Warrington, Lancashire (near Liverpool) in middle-class surroundings to working-class parents, he attended St Mary's University (London). However, while completing his studies, he developed an interest in theatre, to the chagrin of his father, who wanted his children to find secure positions in life.

A drama teacher initially at a Catholic girls convent school, he decided to follow his acting instincts full-time and gradually built up an impressive array of classical stage credits via repertory, including the Bristol Old Vic Drama School, and in stints with Liverpool Everyman, Manchester Royal Exchange and the Royal Shakespeare Company. By the 1980s he was ready to branch out into film and TV, giving a startling performance as a wife abuser in the Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988).

By 1993 he had crossed over into Hollywood parts and earned his first Oscar nomination for his superb role as Daniel Day-Lewis' father in In the Name of the Father (1993). Other quality roles came his way with The Usual Suspects (1995), Brassed Off (1996), and Amistad (1997). He did fine work on television in Sharpe's Company (1994), Lost for Words (1999), and The Sins (2000). Postlethwaite worked equally both in the UK and abroad, and avoided the public limelight for the most part, except for occasional displays of political activism.

Postlethwaite lived quietly out of the spotlight in England and continued on in films with roles in The Shipping News (2001), The Limit (2004), Dark Water (2005), The Omen (2006), Ghost Son (2007) and Solomon Kane (2009). In 2010, he was seen in Clash of the Titans (2010), Inception (2010) and The Town (2010).

Postlewaite died on January 2, 2011, at age 64, of pancreatic cancer. He was surrounded by his wife and son, and by his daughter from a prior relationship.

Norman Jones was born on 16 June 1932 in Donnington, Telford, Shropshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for You Only Live Twice (1967), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Curtain of Fear (1964). He died on 23 April 2013 in Newport, Shropshire, England, UK.

The Oscar-winning screenwriter John Osborne, better known as one of the most important British playwrights of the 1950s generation that revolutionized English-speaking theater, was born on December 12, 1929 in London, England. His father, Thomas Godfrey Osborne, a native of Newport, Monmouthshire, was a copywriter, and his mother, Nellie, was a Cockney barmaid. John's father died in 1941 when he was 11 years old. The insurance settlement allowed him to go to Belmont College, Devon.

After completing school, Osborne did not go on to university but returned to London to live with his mother, where he tried to make it as a journalist. He was introduced to the theater through a job tutoring a touring company of junior actors. Smitten by the theater, he became a stage manager and actor, eventually becoming a member of Anthony Creighton's provincial touring company. Osborne wrote his second play, "Personal Enemy", in collaboration with Anthony Creighton (their "Epitaph for George Dillon" would be staged at the Royal Court in 1958, after Osborne had broken through as a solo artist with the watershed production of "Look Back in Anger", also at the Royal Court).

Look Back in Anger (1959), which opened on May 8, 1956 at the Royal Court, the 11th anniversary of V-E Day (the surrender of Germany and the cessation of hostilities in the European theater of World War II), was revolutionary, as it gave voice to the working class. A press agent came up with the phrase "Angry Young Man" that would stick to Osborne and his compatriots, who created a new type of theater rooted in Bertolt Brecht and class consciousness. Though it initially received mix reviews, the play was a smash in London,and it made the transfer to Broadway, where it ran for a year. "Look Back in Anger" was nominated for a 1958 Tony Award for Best Play (Osborne and producer David Merrick, Best Actress in a Play (Mary Ure, whom Osborne made his second wife), and Best Costume Design (The Motley). It eventually was made into a movie starring Richard Burton and directed by Tony Richardson.

Laurence Olivier had taken Arthur Miller and his wife Marilyn Monroe to see the play when Olivier was shooting The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) in London with MM. Olivier was abashed by the play, but Miller convinced him of its greatness as a theatrical work. Olivier, sensing a sea-change in culture that could make actors of his ilk obsolete, engaged Osborne to write a play for him, and the playwright followed up "Anger" with another brilliant work, The Entertainer (1960). Olivier reinvented himself as well as realigned himself with the new youth movement shaking the theater, giving a tour de force performance as Archie Rice, a down-at-the-heels, third-rate music hall entertainer facing emigration to Canada or oblivion. Osborne used the decline of the music hall, once the premier venue of British entertainment, as a metaphor for the post-war decline of the British Empire in light of the recent debacle in Suez, when the U.K., France and Israel were rebuffed by Egypt and the U.S. when the three countries invaded Egypt to seize the recently nationalized Suez Canal.

Osborne's career continued strong in the 1960s. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Tony Richarson's movie version of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1963), which won Richardson an Oscar as Best Director and was named Best Picture of 1963. He followed this success up with his last great play Luther (1974), in which the cinematic Tom Jones, Albert Finney, won raves playing Osborne's take on Martin Luther, the man who revolutionized Christianity 1,500 years after The Christ. Fitting, that the rebel, the protester Osborne would take on the father of Protestantism. The play, first performed in England in 1961 and transferred to Broadway in 1963, won Osborne a 1964 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as a Tony Award nomination for Albert Finney. (Laurence Olivier had received his sole Tony nomination for "The Entertainer" when he had brought his legendary performance to Broadway.)

Other important plays followed. "Inadmissible Evidence", first performed in 1964, made Nicol Williamson a star (both Osborne and Williamson were nominated for Tony Awards in 1966 after the show transferred to Broadway). His other major play, "A Patriot for Me" (London debut 1965), dealt with the blackmailing of the Austro-Hungarian officer Colonel Redl (also dramatized in István Szabó's Colonel Redl (1985)), who was a homosexual and possibly a Jew in a pre-World War One society that was virulently anti-gay and anti-semitic. The production of the play helped erode theatrical censorship in Britain. The Lord Chamberlain, the theatrical censor in Britian, was opposed to the play and denied it the exhibition license the theater needed to put on public shows due to its frank depiction of homosexuality.

In exchange for an exhibition license, The Lord Chamberlain demanded multiple cuts, which would have resulted in the excision of half the play, according to Alan Bates in a B.B.C. interview during a 1983 revival of the play. Osborne and The Royal Court refused, and -- denied a license -- the theater had to be turned into a private club in order to produce the play in London as to produce it legitimately would have been impossible as half the play would have been censored. "A Patriot for Me" won "The Evening Standard" Best Play of the Year award (as would one of his latter plays, "The Hotel in Amsterdam" in 1968), though it was a succes d'estime, the theater taking a heavy loss on the production.

The year 1968 was a watershed in Osborne's professional life. Not only is 1968 the year that the counterculture "won", sweeping away all before it (and whose effects, as well as detritus, has yet to be replaced by anything else), it was the year of his last successful play, "The Hotel in Amsterdam", and the year that Tony Richardson's masterful satire The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) -- based on a screenplay by Osborne -- was released. He would not enjoy the same success as he had in the 1950s and '60s in the latter part of his life. Starring Maximilian Schell, "A Patriot for Me" was not a success on Broadway, lasting but 49 performances in 1969, testifying to Osborne's decreasing commercial prowess in the theater, which once again was undergoing a revolution, but from the anarchist left with such productions as Tom O'Horgan's Hair (1979).

The five-times married Osborne died from complications of diabetes on December 24, 1994, two weeks after his 65th birthday. His last produced play was "Déjà Vu" (1991), a sequel to his first great success, "Look Back in Anger". His legacy was a transformed British theater, which had broken its links to the ossified D'Oly D'Carte of the former generation, in which the theater was more about elocution by actors playing toffs than it was about life as lived by most Britons. Osborne and the legions of playwrights he influenced made language important, as well as introduced an emotional intensity into the theater. Osborne and his brethren used the theater as a soapbox on which to attack class barriers (and a theater which reinforced those class distinctions).

A tall, imposing character actor with a voice to match, John Phillips brought an authoritative manner and dignified military bearing to his many roles on stage and screen. A decorated veteran of the 1944 Normandy Campaign, Phillips frequently appeared on television as uniformed senior officers and police chief constables, from Frontier (1968) to Z Cars (1962). His piercing eyes and forthright manner made him equally suited to portraying magistrates, academics and clergymen.

After a long innings with the Birmingham Repertory prior to 1945, he appeared post-war in Bristol and at the Old Vic in London, playing anything from Henrik Ibsen to Shakespeare. He was critically acclaimed for his roles as Henry VIII and Timon of Athens, Prospero and Tamburlaine the Great (in Christopher Marlowe's play)). Acting on screen from the early 1950's, he was insidious as lawyer Tulkinghorn in Bleak House (1959), and lent gravitas to his Norfolk in Richard III (1955) and Grand Duke Nicholas in Fall of Eagles (1974). He was not beyond parodying his screen personae, being droll and stereotypically stiff-upper-lip, as Colonel Harcourt Badger Owen in the uproarious Ripping Yarns (1976) episode 'Escape from Stalag Luft 112 B'. Phillips retired from the stage in the 1980's and made his celluloid curtain call in the eccentric, off-beat comedy Leon the Pig Farmer (1992).

Mark Jones was born on 22 April 1939 in the UK. He was an actor, known for Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Under Milk Wood (1971) and Doctor Who (1963). He died on 14 January 2010 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Richard Adams spent his first 52 years in relative anonymity. And when he did complete a book that he wrote, he struggled to find anyone to publish it.

Richard George Adams was born on 9 May 1920, in Newbury, Berkshire. He was the son of a country doctor and was brought up in the rolling countryside with views towards the real Watership Down, on the Hampshire border. One of his earliest memories was seeing a local man pushing a handcart full of dead rabbits down the street. "It made me realise, in an instant, that rabbits were things and that it was only in a baby's world that they were not."

He suffered the fate of many middle-class boys of the period when he was sent to boarding school at the age of nine, where, by all accounts, he had a miserable time. He won a scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford, but his education was interrupted by World War Two and he served for five years in the Army before returning to his studies. He joined the civil service and spent part of his career managing the clean air programme designed to reduce pollution, especially that caused by the many coal fires still burning in British households. The event that changed his life occurred on a car journey with his family to see Twelfth Night at Stratford-upon-Avon. His bored children asked for a story and he began telling them a tale about a group of rabbits attempting to escape from their threatened warren.

Adams was persuaded to write it all down, a process that took him more than two years, but he was, at first, unable to find a publisher. Many of his rejection letters complained that the book was too long and his characters did not fit the common perception of cuddly bunnies. His rabbits were described with biological realism; they defecated, had sex and engaged in violent battles for dominance. Eventually, in 1972, after 14 rejections, the publisher Rex Collings saw the potential and agreed to take it on with an initial print run of 2,500 copies.

It was hailed as a children's classic, going on to sell more than 50 million copies, helped along by readings on BBC radio, and a dramatic performance in London's Regent's Park. Watership Down sold particularly well in the US where canny distributors placed it on the adult publishing list. On his promotional tours across the Atlantic, Adams played the American idea of the archetypical Englishman, wearing a bowler hat and insisting on English marmalade and mustard wherever he went. The book, and a subsequent animated film in 1978, became synonymous with rabbits and at least one enterprising butcher advertised: "You've read the book, you've seen the film, now eat the cast."

Inevitably it attracted criticism from some highbrow reviewers. "There is something to be said for myxomatosis," was one caustic comment. The sudden flow of wealth enabled Adams to retire from the civil service and become a full-time writer. It also drove him into tax exile on the Isle of Man, although he later returned to his roots in southern England. By the time Watership Down was published, he was already writing his second book Shardik, the novel he considered his best work.

It is an epic tale of a bear who is a god in an imaginary world and who is abused by the humans in the story. Shardik did not find favour among critics with some describing it as "preachy", a judgement with which Adams did not disagree. His commitment to animal welfare was expressed in his third novel, The Plague Dogs, an outspoken attack on animal experimentation. He admitted that his indignation about vivisection might have got the better of him but the book became another best-seller.

He became president of the RSPCA but his attempts to persuade the charity to adopt a more campaigning stance did not find favour with some of the more conservative members of the ruling council. He resigned just ahead of a vote which would have severely curtailed his presidential powers. Despite his campaigning for animals he insisted he was not a sentimentalist. He refused to condemn a decision to gas rabbits on the real Watership Down in 1998 after their burrows began undermining the hill. "If I saw a rabbit in my garden I'd shoot it," he once said.

In all, he wrote more than 20 books, including The Girl in a Swing, a ghostly love story with an undercurrent of eroticism, and a prequel to Shardik - entitled Maia - which was criticised for its sexual and sado-masochistic content. None of these books achieved the success of Watership Down and even a 1997 sequel, Tales from Watership Down, failed to capture the magic of the original. Richard Adams was essentially a traditional Englishman with a love of the countryside and a belief that, somehow, things were better in the past. It is perhaps surprising that this natural conservative, from a conventional middle-class background, should have written a book which had such a revolutionary impact on children's literature.

Richard Adams died on Christmas Eve 2016, aged 96.

Jerry Lordan was born on 30 April 1934 in Paddington, London, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Free Guy (2021), The Big Hit (1998) and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019). He was married to Petrina and Claudine. He died on 24 July 1995 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Cliff Robinson was born on 5 February 1930 in Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an art director, known for Black Hawk Down (2001), Children of Men (2006) and Highlander II: The Quickening (1991). He died on 27 April 2011 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Jon Ellison began his musical career at age nine as a boy soprano in the Parish Church choir in Whitchurch. As a baritone soloist he later won a prize at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod, prior to arriving at Technical College (where he studied building construction) and joining the Army. In the summer of 1953 he auditioned for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Birmingham, and was promptly accepted into the chorus, beginning his D'Oyly Carte career on September 1, 1953. He remained in the Carte chorus until December 1956, when he and his wife of one year, Joy Mornay, left the Company to work in Glasgow pantomime. They subsequently worked in television, eventually returning to London where he appeared in the Howard and Wyndham pantomimes at the London Palladium. In April 1958, Jon Ellison rejoined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus, leaving in July 1966. He returned, however, in 1968, and continued playing small roles until 'George Cook' left in 1969, when he was promoted to some of the larger, minor roles. He left the D'Oyly Carte for the final time in 1979. His roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company included Cox in "Cox And Box", The Foreman, Judge and Usher in "Trial by Jury", The Notary in "The Sorcerer", both Bill and Bob in "HMS Pinafore" (he recorded Bill for Decca), Samuel in "The Pirates of Penzance", Bunthorne's Solicitor and Major Murgatroyd in "Patience", Scynthius in "Princess Ida", Go-To in "The Mikado", Old Adam Goodheart in "Ruddigore", both the 1st and 2nd Citizens in "The Yeomen of the Guard", Antonio and Annibale in "The Gondoliers", Tarara in "Utopia Limited" (also recorded for Decca), and Ben Hashbaz in "The Grand Duke" (also recorded for Decca). He also understudied many principal roles. His subsequent appearances include those with "Gilbert & Sullivan a la Carte" (including Wilfred Shadbolt in "The Yeomen of the Guard" at the Barbican) and various G&S concerts, "The Best of Broadway", "Evita", "Hello Dolly" (with Dora Bryan) at London's Dominion Theatre, and appearances in Gawsworth Hall's open air theatrical productions of "H.M.S. Pinafore" (as Bill Bobstay, 1992) and "Ruddigore" (as Old Adam, 1995). Jon has also run a violet farm with his wife since leaving the D'Oyly Carte, and has also appeared in some of the popular "Together Again" concerts. His many fans hope that one day he will publish his autobiography.

Pauline Fisk was born on 27 September 1948 in Wimbledon, London, England, UK. Pauline was a writer, known for Lavender Castle (1999). Pauline was married to David Davies. Pauline died on 25 January 2015 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Edith Pargeter was born on 28 September 1913 in Shropshire, England, UK. She was a writer, known for The Spaniard's Curse (1958), Mystery!: Cadfael (1994) and The Unforeseen (1958). She died on 14 October 1995 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Raymond Froggatt was born on 13 November 1941 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK. He died on 23 July 2023 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Winston Ryder was born on 25 March 1915 in the UK. He is known for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Krull (1983) and Great Expectations (1946). He died on 24 March 1999 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Derek Hammond-Stroud was born on 10 January 1929 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Yeomen of the Guard (1975), Iolanthe (1982) and The Merry Widow (1968). He died on 14 May 2012 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Gordon Bilboe was born on 5 May 1944 in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Expert (1968), Dixon of Dock Green (1955) and Hunters Walk (1973). He died on 26 February 2005 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Marian Martin was born on 11 December 1936 in Bootle, Liverpool, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Fireside Theatre (1949), Patience (1965) and Street Scene (1992). She was married to George Cook. She died on 3 May 2003 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Jack Taylor was born on 21 May 1930 in Wolverhampton, England, UK. He died on 27 July 2012 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Sylvia Jukes Morris was born on 24 May 1935 in Dudley, Birmingham, England, UK. She was married to Edmund Morris. She died on 5 January 2020 in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England, UK.

Lionel Brown was born on 5 October 1888 in Dublin, Ireland. He was a writer, known for The Price of Wisdom (1935), To Have and to Hold (1951) and Lilli Palmer Theatre (1955). He died on 15 June 1964 in College Hill, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Tina Humphrey was born in 1972. She was married to Steve Jetley. She died on 12 May 2017 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

John Biffen was born on 3 November 1930 in Combwich, Somerset, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Wolves of Kromer (1998), This Question of Pressures (1969) and This Week (1956). He was married to Sarah Wood. He died on 14 August 2007 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.

Maurice Rootes was born on 12 April 1917 in Surrey, Kent, England, UK. He was an editor, known for Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Spaceways (1953) and Four Sided Triangle (1953). He died on 17 June 1997 in Ludlow, South Shropshire, England, UK.

Ted Cutlack was born on 12 April 1917 in Fulham, London, England, UK. Ted is known for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967), Thunderbirds Are GO (1966) and Thunderbirds (1965). Ted died in 1992 in Oswestry, Shropshire, England, UK.

Roger Squires was born on 22 February 1932 in Tettenhall Wood, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Crossroads (1964), Hey Presto! It's Rolf (1965) and Crackerjack! (1955). He died on 1 June 2023 in Shropshire, England, UK.

Liam Treadwell was born on 3 January 1986 in Arundel, West Sussex, England, UK. He died on 23 June 2020 in Billingsley, Shropshire, England, UK.