Kenneth Griffith's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Clochemerle (UK) Ernest Tafa… Perils of Penelope Pitstop Isaac Hancock (UK) Owen Bowen The New Adventures of Martin Kane (UK) Hollis The Wednesday Thriller (UK) Mr. Seam

Main Movie Roles 1995 - The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain 1994 - Four Weddings And A Funeral 1982 - Who Dares Wins 1978 - The Wild Geese 1976 - Sky Riders 1974 - S*P*Y*S 1968 - The Lion in Winter 1963 - Heavens Above! 1960 - Circus of Horrors 1959 - Tiger Bay 1958 - A Night to Remember 1957 - Lucky Jim 1957 - Blue Murder at St. Trinian's 1956 - 1984

BIOGRAPHY:

Kenneth Griffith (12 October 1921 – 25 June 2006) was a Welsh actor and documentary filmmaker.
Early life He was born Kenneth Reginald Griffiths in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Six months after his birth his parents split up and left Tenby, leaving Kenneth with his paternal grandparents, Emily and Ernest, who immediately adopted him. A lively rugby union scrum-half,[1] he attended the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel three times every Sunday.[2]
Griffiths passed the Eleven plus and attended Greenhill Grammar School, where he met English literature teacher Evelyn Ward, who recognised his writing and acting talent. Before leaving school, his headmaster J. T. Griffth suggested that he drop the English "s" from his name (an anglicisation).[3]
Career In 1937 he left school and moved to Cambridge, taking a job at an ironmonger's weighing nails. This lasted only a day and proved to be the only job he ever had outside of the acting world. He approached the Cambridge Festival Theatre for work, and at the age of 16 was cast by Peter Hoare[disambiguation needed

] as Cinna the Poet in a modern-dress version of Julius Caesar.[3] He became a regular jobbing repertory actor, making his West End theatre debut in 1938 with a small part in Thomas Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday.[2]
Griffith volunteered for service with the Royal Air Force in 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. Before training in Canada, he returned to see his grandparents in Tenby, who at his request gave him a leather-bound copy of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf; he later explained in an interview that he wanted to understand what he was fighting against. While training in Canada, he caught scarlet fever, which resulted in his taking up stamp collecting. The first stamp he collected was the Siege of Ladysmith, South Africa.
In 1941, he made his debut in the first of more than 100 films in which he principally played character roles. Released from the air arm of the Royal Air Force, Griffith returned to London, from where he was invalided out of the RAF in 1942.[3]
He joined the Liverpool, Lancashire-relocated Old Vic,[2] and in repertory. On return from a tour of South Africa (during which he visited Ladysmith), he met his great friend and fellow Celt Peter O'Toole.




TRIVIA:

• Father of 'Eva Griffiths' (qv).
• Was a friend of 'Patrick McGoohan' (qv) during the 1960s.
• Is a close friend of 'Peter O'Toole (I)' (qv).
• The Welshman was encouraged to drop the "s" from his surname for professional reasons, because it sounded too British.
• Did not enjoy the long rehearsal process and virtually abandoned the theatre to work solely in cinema and television.
• All three marriages ended in divorce. He had three sons and two daughters.
• Besides 'Patrick McGoohan' (qv), he was the only other actor to appear in the finales of both _"Danger Man" (1964)_ (qv) and _"The Prisoner" (1967)_ (qv).
• Griffith was very much a political animal with firmly held views on British imperialism. These were reflected in some no-holds-barred documentaries about 'Winston Churchill (I)' (qv), 'Cecil Rhodes' (qv) and 'Napoléon Bonaparte' (qv).