Paul McDowell (actor)

Paul William McDowell (15 August 1931 – 2 May 2016) was an English actor and writer who appeared in numerous television productions over a 40-year period.^[1]

Early life and career

After leaving school, he trained to be a painter at Chelsea Art College. In the early 1960s as "Whispering" Paul McDowell he was a vocalist with the British 1920s-style jazz band The Temperance Seven, who had a No. 1 hit in Britain. He was a member of the pop group 'Guggenheim' which he formed with Granada TV producer and singer Chris Pye, and guitarist Jules Burns. The album Guggenheim was released in 1972 on Indigo Records, and distributed by the British Decca label. He worked at the Establishment Club as an actor/writer, then became a member of the improvisational group the Second City in the United States and was a writer on The Frost Report.

Television actor

His television roles include: Mr. Collinson, a sour-faced prison officer in Porridge, Churchill’s butler in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years, and Mr. Phillips in The Two of Us. He featured in several editions of Dave Allen at Large. Film roles include a Scottish laird in The Thirty Nine Steps (1978).

Writer

As a screenwriter he wrote for Sheila Hancock and The Two Ronnies. Later he concentrated on writing and teaching t'ai chi ch'uan.^[2]

Filmography

• The Thirty Nine Steps (1978) - McLean
• Porridge (1979) - Collinson
• Rough Cut (1980) - Postman
• National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) – First English Motorist
• Chemical Wedding (2008) - Symonds

Notes

External links

• Paul McDowell on IMDb