Fair cop with the Gentle Touch
SOON after winning the role of PC Newcombe in the hit 1960s and 1970s police series Z-Cars, Bernard Holley nearly lost it after revealing to the show’s director that he couldn’t drive.
Thankfully, a stunt driver was hired and Holley racked up four years as the humble, handsome bobby. His other major roles were in two episodes of DoctorWho as Peter Haydon in The Tomb Of The Cybermen in 1967 and the Axon Man, a golden monster, in The Claws Of Axos in 1971.
A long-standing theatre actor, he appeared opposite Kenneth Williams in My Fat Friend at The Globe Theatre, now the Gielgud, in the West End. He enjoyed a good rapport with the Carry On star, regularly dining with him in Soho and featuring six times in his diaries, all of them favourably.
He was born in Eastcote, Middlesex, one of three children to Fred and Doris. His father died when he was two and his mother remarried before having six more children. He attended Kilburn Grammar School until the age of 16 and moved into office work.
Two years later, he wrote to the British Drama League, now the British Theatre Association, asking how he might become an actor.
It wrote back addressing him as “Miss B Holley”, which deterred his thespian ambitions for another year until he successfully applied to Rose Bruford College.
Holley played another police role from 1982 to 1984 in The Gentle Touch, this time as Detective Inspector Mike Turnbull.
He also became a reader on the children’s TV series Jackanory between 1974 and 1991, and played the Chief Constable in A Touch Of Frost in 1999 and 2003.
Holley died following a long illness. Married twice, he is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Jean Brockie, and their son Michael.