Edwardian Woodward

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He went to Broadway with the play the following year and appeared there in two more shows in the mid-60s: High Spirits and The Best Laid Plans. Harry Morant in the classic Aussie-made historical drama Breaker Morant (1980) directed by Bruce Beresford. Earlier this year, despite suffering from ill health, he starred as the Rev Frederick Densham in A Congregation of Ghosts. He was torn between becoming an actor and a professional footballer, and was on the books of Leyton Orient FC and Brentford FC, making three appearances in the football league for the latter, but a serious knee injury kept him out of the game for over a year. Woodward died at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, Cornwall, on 16 November 2009, at the age of 79, near his home at Hawker's Cove.

Edward Woodward, left, as the uptight police officer Howie with Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man, 1973. A stint as a shorthand typist for a sanitary engineers followed, before he went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at 16 and appeared on stage at Castle theatre, Farnham, in 1946. In 1969 and 1970, he was Television Actor of the Year, and Best Actor at the Sun Awards in 1970, 1971 and 1972. The policeman is then placed inside a massive, hollow wicker effigy of a man above the cliffs and the pyre is lit. Woodward suffered a massive heart attack in 1987 (during the third season of The Equalizer) and another one in 1994.Keen on acting since winning a talent competition at the age of five, he joined the repertory company at the Castle Theatre, Farnham, as assistant stage manager and made his professional début in A Kiss for Cinderella (1946). Staying in the northern Cyprus town of Kyrenia, he was one of several Britons evacuated from the island by the Royal Navy aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes following the Turkish invasion and occupation of Kyrenia.

Most memorable, though, was Russell Hunter in the role of the the petty thief Lonely, the spy's snivelling, smelly accomplice.On the big screen he also played Sergeant Neil Howie, alongside Christopher Lee and Diane Cilento, in The Wicker Man (1973); Commander Powell in Who Dares Wins (1982); Saul in King David; the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol; Merlin in Merlin and the Sword; Captain Haldane in The Young Winston; the racehorse trainer Josh Gifford in Champions; and Sergeant Wellbeloved in Stand Up Virgin Soldiers. But he explained that at the Old Vic – where the National Theatre was then located – he would have the right to fail, a concept foreign to the Americans, whose attitude was "enough to drive anyone right round the bend".

This lovely little English antique bottle, would make the most special of tiny flower vases, perfect for a small display, or to add to a bottle or curio collection. During a 1958 season with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Woodward acted Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Laertes in Hamlet, Thaliard in Pericles and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing.Throughout his career, he appeared in productions in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. The late 1950s saw him distinguishing himself at Stratford, as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and Laertes in Hamlet, then enjoying a popular success in Rattle of a Simple Man, opposite Sheila Hancock, at the Garrick in London in 1962.