Tony Britton
Tony Britton (Anthony Edward Lowry Britton) was an English actor born on 9 June 1924 in Erdington, Birmingham. He died on 22 December 2019 in London at the age of 95. He worked as an actor from 1950 to 2013.
He was married twice — to Ruth Hawkins from 1948 to 1961, and to Eva Castle from 1962 until her death in 2008. He had three children: Cherry Britton, Fern Britton and Jasper Britton.
His father ran the Trocadero pub in Birmingham, and Britton attended Edgbaston Collegiate School and Thornbury Grammar School. He served in the Army during the Second World War and also worked as an estate agent and in an aircraft factory. He began acting in a Weston-super-Mare amateur group, then turned professional, performing at the Old Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Britton acted in many British films, including Operation Amsterdam (1959), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and The Day of the Jackal (1973). On television he starred in Don’t Wait Up (1983–1990), and appeared in other series such as ...And Mother Makes Five, Father, Dear Father and Robin’s Nest. He also did many audiobooks of Dick Francis novels.
He won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for The Nearly Man and was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in 1975 for the same show. In 1979 he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for My Fair Lady. In 2013 he performed in a Gala King Lear at the Old Vic, playing the Earl of Gloucester.
In his later years he lived in Fiddington, Somerset.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:08 (CET).