Jewel in the Crown star dies at 70
ACTOR Tim Pigott-Smith, best known for TV series The Jewel In The Crown, died yesterday at the age of 70.
The Bafta-winner, whose career spanned almost five decades across stage and screen, received an OBE for services to drama in the last New Year honours.
From Monday he had been due to star in Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman at the Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton before a nationwide tour. He was to have appeared opposite his actress wife Pamela Miles, but she pulled out of the production earlier this week after breaking a bone during rehearsals and needing surgery.
The father-of-one was a familiar face, from early roles in Doctor Who and The Vice to big screen appearances in The Remains Of The Day and Bond film Quantum Of Solace.
His 1984 role as a racist police superintendent in ITV’s India-set drama The Jewel In The Crown won him a Bafta award for best actor. Speaking last month, he described the part as ‘the one that changed my life’.
In 2015 he received Olivier and Tony Award nominations for his lead role in the stage play King Charles III, reprising the part for a forthcoming BBC2 version. He can currently be seen as Sniggs in the BBC1 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s comic novel Decline And Fall.
His agent John Grant said: ‘Tim was one of the great actors of his generation. Much-loved and admired by his peers, he will be remembered by many as a gentleman and a true friend.’