Terence Beesley
Actor who ranged from television soaps to Shakespeare
TERENCE BEESLEY, the actor, who has died aged 60, was probably best known as the husband of the Scottish-born television actress Ashley Jensen, who made her name as the chronically tactless Maggie in
Extras, with Ricky Gervais, and became an international star in the American comedy drama Ugly Betty, as Betty’s friend Christina.
Though less well known than his wife, Beesley had an active career as a stage and screen actor, ranging from leading roles in Shakespeare to appearances in television soaps.
The couple met in 1999 when they were both appearing at the Manchester Royal Exchange in King Lear, in which she played the king’s vicious, flamehaired daughter Regan and he played Regan’s violent husband, the Duke of Cornwall (with Tom Courtenay as Lear).
While Ashley Jensen was appearing in Extras, the couple took a holiday road trip in California. There, she auditioned successfully for Ugly Betty, and they decided to stay. They made headlines in January 2007 when they eloped to marry in a forest in Big Sur, accompanied only, so it was reported, by their dog Barney as ringbearer, though the actress claimed the story had been exaggerated by the press, explaining: “He just had a wee bag round his neck; he walked from A to B then we took the rings out.” They had a son, born in 2009.
Ashley Jensen left Ugly Betty to appear in another US comedy, Accidentally on Purpose, but when that was not recommissioned, the family returned to Britain, settling near Bath, Somerset, in 2012.
Terence Beesley was born in London in September 1957 to Irish parents, and trained at the City Literary Institute and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
He went on to star in a wide variety of popular television series including Poirot, The Bill, Casualty, Cadfael, Where the Heart Is, Heartbeat, Midsomer Murders and Eastenders, in which he appeared in 1996 as Derek Branning, the racist eldest child of Jim (John Bardon) and Reenie Branning (Joy Graham) and brother of April Branning (Debbie Arnold) and Carol Jackson (Lindsey Coulson). His character left after a few episodes after getting into a fight with David Wicks (Michael French); when Derek Branning returned several years later after spending time in jail, he was played by another actor, Jamie Foreman.
Beesley also appeared in Peter Kosminsky’s television film 15: The Life and Death of Phillip Knight (1993) and became familiar to viewers of historical costume dramas more recently as the anti-slavery campaigner and MP Thomas Fowell Buxton in ITV’S Victoria and General Bennigsen in BBC One’s adaptation of War and Peace (both 2016).
Beesley performed in numerous stage shows in provincial rep, including playing the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses in Mark Clements’s production at the Derby Playhouse in 1994 and the title role of Richard III in the same director’s production, also at the Derby Playhouse, the following year. He was a co-founder, with Jonathan Church and Jules Melvin, of the Triptych Theatre Company.
His film credits include a small role in Phantom of the Opera (1989), as the stagehand who claims to have seen the Opera Ghost, Decadence (1994), Human Traffic (1999) and The Monkey King (2014).
Beesley was found unconscious at the family home in Somerset at the end of November. Paramedics were called to the house but he was pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterwards. The news only became public in middecember and the cause of death is not yet known.
He is survived by his wife and son.
Terence Beesley, born September 1957, died November 2017