Peter Hughes (actor)


Peter Clowe Hughes was an English actor with a career spanning five decades. He was an actor, founder and director of theatre, but was best known for his film and television roles.

Early life and theatre

Hughes was born in Kensal Rise, London, an only child of a single mother. He was partly raised in foster institutions, and initially trained as a draughtsman designing car chassis, before moving to Coventry after his mother died in 1939 where he took a post designing armoured cars.
After helping establish the Talisman Theatre in 1942, he trained as an actor, making his professional debut in 1949, in a production of Noel Coward's Fallen Angels. His West End debut would occur four years later in 1953, after which he would establish a long association with both the Richmond Theatre and the Watford Palace Theatre.

Film and television

In television he would play the recurring role of a Bank Manager in the BBC series Bergerac. Other notable roles include an English tourist in Love Is a Splendid Illusion. He appeared in An Englishman's Castle in 1978, a serial of alternative history in which the Nazis have won the Second World War; as Maitre D' in The Great Muppet Caper ; the P&O manager in David Lean's A Passage to India and a policeman in the John Boorman film Hope and Glory.
TV miniseries included Jack the Ripper starring Michael Caine. He played General Franco in Alan Parker's film adaptation of Evita in 1996.

Personal life

Hughes and his wife Erica were the parents of historian Bettany and Simon, a cricketer and journalist. He retired in 1999 and died in February 2019 at the age of 96.

Filmography