John Arnatt(1917-1999)

John Edwin Arnatt was born in Petrograd on the eve of the Russian Revolution, the son of a manager for Vauxhall Motors. Forced to leave Russia during the turmoil, his family returned to England where John was schooled at Epworth College and later trained for acting at RADA. On stage from 1936, he made his debut at the London West End in 1938 (in the revue "Happy Returns"). He resumed his theatrical career following wartime army service, even enjoying a brief stint as a stand-up comic at the Windmill Theatre. During the 1950's, he appeared in plays by Shakespeare and Chekhov at the Arts Theatre Club and at the Old Vic (both in London and in Bristol), as well as doubling up reporting sports on commercial television under the nom de plume 'Howard Peters'.

A tall man with urbane manners, a no-nonsense attitude, often sporting a pencil moustache, Arnatt is best remembered for his many impersonations on screen of thoughtful, pipe-smoking authority figures: Scotland Yard inspectors, commissioners, diplomats, aristocrats and army officers. In Doctor Who (1963) ("The Invasion of Time"), he played the Time Lord Borusa, one-time Lord Chancellor of Gallifrey. He was, perhaps, most effectively employed as deputy sheriff (temporarily replacing Alan Wheatley) or as the high sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955), a worthy antagonist to Richard Greene.