Martin Jarvis (actor)

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Martin Jarvis
Born 4 August 1941(1941-08-04)
Occupation Actor

Martin Jarvis OBE (born August 4, 1941 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) is an English actor.

Contents

[edit] Early life

He is the son of Denys Harry Jarvis and Margot Lillian Scottney, and grew up in South Norwood. He attended the independent Whitgift School in Croydon.

[edit] Acting

Jarvis trained at RADA, where he won the Vanbrugh Award and the Silver Medal.[1] He has acted in many stage productions in London and abroad, most recently starring alongside Diana Rigg and Natascha McElhone in Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour at London's Wyndham's Theatre until May 2006.

[edit] Radio work

Jarvis has had a long association with the BBC, particularly BBC Radio 4. He has performed in many radio dramas and readings, most notably of Richmal Crompton's Just William stories. As a result of this extensive work, and his characteristic reading voice, Jarvis is frequently (and accurately) satirised by the radio show Dead Ringers by Mark Perry, highlighting his seemingly ubiquity on Radio 4 dramas.

In America, he and his wife Rosalind Ayres perform frequently in audio drama with the L.A. Theater Works and Hollywood Theater of the Ear.

[edit] Television work

Jarvis's first television appearance was in 1965 in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, playing a giant butterfly in "The Web Planet".[2] He became a familiar face on television when he played Jon in the BBC's landmark 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, the lead in a BBC serialisation of Nicholas Nickleby (1968), Uriah Heep in the 1974 BBC version of David Copperfield and the male lead in the sitcom Rings On Their Fingers (1978-80) with Diane Keen. He also appeared in the 2002 BBC children's miniseries Bootleg.

Jarvis has made several guest appearances in Doctor Who, including the serial "Vengeance on Varos" in 1985 as the beleaguered governor of the planet Varos. He has also appeared in "Jubilee", a Doctor Who spin off audio drama by Big Finish Productions alongside his wife.

His many appearances on American television include series such as Murder, She Wrote, Walker, Texas Ranger, and most recently Stargate Atlantis.

Jarvis has also voiced various characters in animated series such as Billy and Mandy and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee. An interesting note is that in the former's case, he inherits the role of the character Nergal from his Titanic co-star David Warner.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Jarvis was the subject of BBC television's This Is Your Life in 1999.

He has also published a book of memoirs titled Acting Strangely: A Funny Kind of Life (ISBN 0413728501 hardback, ISBN 0413745503 paperback).

Together with his wife, Jarvis runs the radio production company "Jarvis & Ayres Productions",[2] frequently used by Radio 4.

[edit] Personal life

He married Rosalind Ayres on November 23, 1974 in Ealing and has two sons by a previous marriage. He met Ayres when playing in Hamlet together, where she played Ophelia. He was awarded the OBE in 2000. He has houses in London and Los Angeles.

Martin and his wife are close friends with Simply Red singer, Mick 'Red Mick' Hucknall

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ CV for Martin Jarvis. Amanda Howard Associates. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
  2. ^ a b BBC Drama: Much Ado About Nothing. BBC (2005-04-26). Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
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