British actor Geoffrey Palmer, 93
Geoffrey Palmer, a British character actor with jowly cheeks and a hangdog expression who was best known to American audiences for starring opposite Judi Dench in the long-running sitcom “As Time Goes By,” died Nov. 5 at his home in Buckinghamshire, England. He was 93.
The death was confirmed by Deborah Charlton of the Conway van Gelder Grant talent agency in London. The cause was not disclosed.
Palmer, who once was an instructor for the British Royal Marines, began acting in theatrical productions in the 1950s. Moving easily from comedy to drama, he was in films including “A Fish Called Wanda,” “The Madness of King George” and the 1997 James Bond thriller “Tomorrow Never Dies,” in which he appeared with Dench, his longtime costar.
Palmer made his most lasting impact on the small screen, where he was often cast in character roles. He had a deep, resonant baritone voice and an instantly recognizable face, with a wide mouth, mournful eyes and drooping cheeks.
“There’s slightly too much flesh for the bone structure so it flaps about,” he told the Times of London in 2005.
Playwright Alan Bennett, who worked with Palmer in the 1980s, described him as a British counterpart to Walter Matthau.
Palmer specialized in emotionally rigid, somewhat clueless characters, often retired military men, who grumble about changing times and modern youth. In the words of one British critic, he seemed to have been annoyed at the world “since about 1847.” He gained a measure of fame in the 1970s British TV comedy “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin,” playing an ill- tempered retired army officer.
In 1979, he had a memorable appearance in an episode of “Fawlty Towers,” a comedy series created in part by John Cleese of Monty Python. Palmer played a guest who tries in vain to get a serving of sausages for breakfast, while Cleese’s character, farcically incompetent hotel proprietor Basil Fawlty, tries to hide a dead body.
In another British TV series, “Butterflies” (1978-83), Palmer was cast as a melancholy dentist who paid more attention to his butterfly collection than to his family.
Palmer was well into his 60s when he found his greatest acclaim in “As Time Goes By,” a poignant sitcom about an older couple reuniting after a long separation.