Paul Daneman(1925-2001)

Born in London Paul was educated at Haberdashers' Aske School in Borehamwood and Sir William Borlase's school in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He then read fine art at Reading University. From 1943 -47 he served in the RAF Bomber Command where stage performances for fellow servicemen whetted his appetite for the theatre and training at RADA followed by a Boxing Day 1947 debut at Bromley's News Theatre as the front legs of a horse in Alice in Wonderland. Pauls work took him from Shakespeare to musical comedy, revue, pantomime, West End drama and television. He relished the difference between stage and television acting and did his best to alternate his work so that he never came to fear a return to the stage. In 1955 he appeared in the English premiere of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot. He changed roles ending up as Vladimir just before rehearsals began. Although he looked at home in all kinds of play he did not reach the heights for which he had seemed destined at the Old Vic in the 1950's and 60's In the early 1960's he was Dr Faustus and Richard III with The Old Vic before joining Nottingham Playhouse with whom he toured West Africa. He also played King Arthur in Camelot touring Australia before taking over from Laurence Harvey at Drury Lane (1965) after starring in The New Men at The Strand. It wasn't in his nature to stray for long from the classics though television was by then a force so in order to keep abreast of the theatre he had a way of turning up in all kinds of plays and thrillers and farces. When in 1979 he took over from Donald Sinden in Shut Your Eyes and Think of England he had a heart attack while tending to one of the characters who was supposed to have suffered the same thing so he turned to writing. His television sitcom Affairs of the Heart (1985) starred Derek Fowlds as a man who had a heart attack. His novel If Only I Had Wings was published in 1995. His 1952 marriage to Susan Courtney with whom he had an adopted daughter ended in divorce. He then married Meredith by whom he had two daughters. Paul died on 28th April 2001