Kevin Whately's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Lewis (UK) DI Robert L… Inspector Morse (UK) Det. Sgt. R… Who Do You Think You Are? (UK) Kevin Whately Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (UK) Neville Hope Peak Practice (UK) Dr. Jack Ke… The Children (UK) Cameron Mil… You Must Be the Husband (UK) Hugo Mansell The Broker's Man (UK) James 'Jimm…

Main Movie Roles 1996 - The English Patient

BIOGRAPHY:

Kevin Whately (born 6 February 1951) is an English actor.
Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and Lewis.
Whately is from Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland.[2] His mother, Mary (née Pickering-, was a teacher and his father, Richard, was a Commander in the Royal Navy.His maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips,was a professional concert singer and his great-great-grandfather, Richard Whately, was Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 2 March 2009, also revealed that Whately is a descendant, on his paternal side, of Thomas Whately of Nonsuch Park, a leading London merchant, English politician and writer who became a director of the Bank of England, and of Major Robert Thompson, a pioneer tobacco plantation owner in Virginia who was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the English Commonwealth.

Whately was educated at Barnard Castle School,and studied drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama. His brother, Frank, is a drama lecturer at a London university. Before going professional, Kevin was an amateur actor at the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1970s

Career

Before turning to professional acting Whately began his working life as a folk singer, and still plays guitar, performing for charity concerts:Along with other Auf Wiedersehen, Pet stars, he makes an appearance at the biennial benefit concert Sunday for Sammy in Newcastle. Before becoming an actor, he started training as an accountant.

His acting career includes several stage plays, among them an adaptation of Twelve Angry Men and film appearances in The Return of the Soldier, The English Patient, Paranoid and Purely Belter.

Whately's television appearances include episodes of Shoestring, Angels, Juliet Bravo, Strangers, Coronation Street, Shackleton, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Marple, Inspector Morse, Alas Smith and Jones, Look and Read, You Must Be The Husband, B&B, Peak Practice, Skallagrigg, The Broker's Man, Murder in Mind, 2003 Comic Relief Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Lewis, New Tricks, Who Gets the Dog?, The Children and Silent Cry (film). Whately provided one of the voices for the English language version of the 1999 claymation Children's television series Hilltop Hospital. He has also appeared in an advert for Water Aid doing a voice over.

Perhaps his most memorable television appearances were as Detective Sergeant Lewis, the down-to-earth complement to the snobbishly intellectual Inspector Morse. He reprised the role in the spin-off series Lewis, in which Lewis returns to Oxford as full Inspector. With his new partner, the Cambridge-educated Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), Inspector Lewis solves murder mysteries while trying to rebuild his life after his wife's sudden passing, and gain recognition from his sceptical new boss.

Richard Marson's book celebrating fifty years of Blue Peter comments that Whately auditioned as a presenter for the show in 1980 but lost out to Peter Duncan.

Personal life

Whately lives close to Milton Keynes, with his wife actress Madelaine Newton, who starred in 1970s BBC drama When the Boat Comes In. The couple have two children: Catherine "Kitty" Whately, born in 1983, who appeared as Kevin's on-screen daughter in the series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet for the first two seasons; and Kieran, born in 1985.

Whately enjoys music; he listens to Pink Floyd and Dire Straits. He supports Newcastle United Football Club on the football field and as a cricketer admitted to Inspector Morse writer Colin Dexter that he would like to have played cricket professionally for England, Dexter devised the storyline for "Inspector Morse: Deceived by Flight (#3.3)" (1989) in which Sergeant Lewis had to go undercover in a cricket team to investigate drug smuggling.Whately has recently come out in support for the Labour Party campaigning with Ken Livingstone in the London Mayor elections


TRIVIA:

• Despite training as an actor in London, Kevin retained his strong Newcastle accent, which was still unusual for an actor at that time.
• Studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
• Children, with 'Madelaine Newton' (qv): 'Catherine Whately' (qv) ("Kitty"), born in 1983 and Kieran, born in 1985. Whately appeared as Kevin's on-screen daughter in the series _"Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" (1983)_ (qv) for the first two seasons.
• His brother, Frank, is a Drama lecturer at a London university.
• He told 'Colin Dexter' (qv) that he would like to have played cricket professionally for England if he had not become an actor, so Dexter devised the storyline for _"Inspector Morse" (1987) {Deceived by Flight (#3.3)}_ (qv) in which Sergeant Lewis has to go undercover in a cricket team to investigate drug smuggling.
• He plays guitar and listens to 'Pink Floyd' (qv) and 'Dire Straits' (qv).
• Before becoming an actor he trained as an accountant.