Donald Sinden
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Sir Donald Alfred Sinden, CBE (born Plymouth, 9 October 1923) is an English stage and film actor.
A stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company he first acted at the Brighton Little Theatre (of which he later became President) in 1941 and broke into professional acting after appearing in revues for the armed forces during the Second World War. He subsequently appeared in many British films of the 1950s including The Cruel Sea and Doctor in the House.
He reached widespread fame in the long-running London Weekend Television situation comedy Two's Company, in which he played an English butler, Robert, to Elaine Stritch's American character, Dorothy. Much of the humour derived from the culture clashes between Robert's very stiff-upper-lip Britishness and Dorothy's devil-may-care New York view on life. Both Sinden and Stritch performed the title music. He was also to star as Simon Peel in the comedy Never the Twain (1981), in which he played a snooty antiques dealer who had to live next door to Oliver Smallbridge (Windsor Davies), who also ran an antique shop. The pair hated each other, and were thus horrified when they discovered that their son and daughter were to be married - thus meaning they were related. Despite the lack of critical acclaim, this series was to run for 11 years. He also appeared on radio including Sir Charles Baskerville in the Radio 4 adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles. Other roles include many stage appearances in the works of Shakespeare for which he gained plaudits and won numerous awards for his portrayals, a regular appearance as a senior judge (and father-in-law to the title character) in Judge John Deed, and even a guest role in the cult series The Prisoner. He also appeared in the 1978 film The National Health.
He was spoofed mercilessly on Spitting Image (a British satirical television programme in which famous people were usually lampooned by viciously caricatured latex puppets) for his stage actorly delivery and fruity voice (for example, his puppet, sitting in a restaurant, summons a waiter and asks "Do you serve a ham salad?" the waiter replies "Yes, we serve salad to anyone") and was shown fawning to the Queen and requesting a knighthood from her. He did however receive a knighthood in 1997.
One of his sons, actor Jeremy Sinden (who played a recurring role as Anthony Mortimer in the British soap opera Crossroads), and his wife, Diana Sinden, née Mahony, an actress, both died from cancer.
His other son is Marc Sinden an actor and West End theatre producer, whose own son (Sir Donald's grandson) is Hal Sinden, also an actor and singer for the UK metal band Interlock.
