Actor and dedicated member of London’s Mermaid Theatre
RON PEMBER, the actor, who has died aged 87, was a stalwart of London’s newly built Mermaid Theatre from its opening in 1959 until his retirement 33 years later. He was also one of British television’s most prolific character actors, whose lived-in face and roguish grin brought both realism and comedy to the screen.
Many of his 150 screen roles saw him drop in on popular series for just an episode, as when he played Baz in Only Fools and Horses in 1983. Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Trigger (Roger Lloyd Pack) are the only ones in attendance as Baz sits waiting to chair a local tenants’ association meeting. When Trigger asks Baz if the meeting is going to begin, he is told that, according to the constitution, it cannot start without the vice-chairman.
“Well, how long’s he going to be?” asks Rodney. “Oh, probably a hell of a long time, son,” replies Baz. “He died a fortnight ago.”
In the event, Rodney is elected to replace him and becomes chairman when Baz resigns. Del Boy (David Jason) sees in this the chance to use his brother’s newfound power to get them and their ailing Grandad (Lennard Pearce) out of their Mandela House council flat and into a bungalow.
A rare long-running role was Alain Muny in all three series of the acclaimed Second World War drama Secret Army (1977-79), about the Lifeline resistance movement in Germanoccupied Belgium returning Allied aircrew shot down by the Luftwaffe.
Alongside Bernard Hepton as Albert Foiret, the café owner providing a base for the group, and Clifford Rose as Ludwig Kessler, the sadistic head of the Gestapo in Belgium, Pember played Lifeline’s radio operator, a pivotal character keeping contact with London and supplying food to Café Candide. In the final series, a British agent saves him from torture by the Gestapo.
Another of Pember’s cameo roles was in a 1988 episode of the cult TV comedy Red Dwarf as the psychopathic tax collector presenting Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) with an £18,000 demand, telling him in the event of nonpayment: “I am instructed by the revenue to break both your legs and pull off your thumbs... Sir.”
Ronald Henry Pember was born in Plaistow, then in Essex, on April 11 1934, the youngest of five children, to Gladys (née Orchard) and William Pember, a house painter. The family moved to Dagenham when he was three and he gained a love of showbusiness through visiting the People’s Palace theatre in Mile End Road.
While still at Eastbrook Secondary Modern School, Dagenham, he gained stage management experience by helping at theatres in the evenings. Then in 1949 he made his stage début as Fabian in Twelfth Night on a tour of pubs in Durham mining villages. While going through various jobs by day – including ice-cream seller and working for a theatre scenery supplier – he acted with an amateur group.
After National Service with the RAF in Egypt (1952-54), Pember became a member of the Penguin Players in Bexhill-on-sea, East Sussex, where he met a dancer, Yvonne Tylee, whom he married in 1959.
That year, he made his London professional début with the company at the Mermaid, which was run by the actor Bernard Miles. His début was as Harry in Treasure Island, which became a regular Christmas show there, sometimes directed by Pember.
Lionel Bart’s wartime musical Blitz! (1962-63) provided him with his first West End role, as a firefighter. He then joined Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company at the Old Vic (1965-68) and appeared with the RSC (1974-75).
Later, Pember acted with the National Theatre for a longer run (1981-88) after it established a base on London’s South Bank.
With Denis de Marne, he wrote the musical Jack the Ripper, performed at the Players’ Theatre, Covent Garden, in 1974 before moving into the West End.
Ron Pember is survived by his wife and their son and two daughters.
Ron Pember, born April 11 1934, died March 8 2022