
Acting
Stephen Yardley
Born
1942-03-24 (84)
Place of birth
Ferrensby, North Yorkshire, England, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
57 titles
Stephen Yardley (born 24 March 1942) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1963, he became known for his many roles on UK television between 1964 and 2004. In the mid-1960s, Yardley was a permanent member of the company at Dundee Repertory Theatre. Yardley made early appearances on television in the 1960s in series including Danger Man and United!, and had an extended run during 1967–68 in Z-Cars. His subsequent work included performances as semi-reformed cat burglar William "Spider" Scott in The XYY Man (1976–77); as Detective Inspector Laker in Regan, the Armchair Theatre instalment which served as the pilot for The Sweeney; Max Brocard in Secret…
Known for
7.9The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963
5.7Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
Crown Court
1972
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.3Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Z-Cars
1962
7.0ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
ITV Playhouse
1967
7.0Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.
Bergerac
1981
Film credits
1990s · 1 titles
1980s · 6 titles
6.3In Victorian England, graverobbers supply a wealthy doctor with bodies to research anatomy on, but greed causes them to seek an easier means of getting the job done.
The Doctor and the Devils
1985
4.8After thieves botch an armored truck robbery that leads to the death of an innocent young girl, her father vows revenge by recruiting a sociopathic hitman to track them down and assassinate them.
Slayground
1984
7.4When the TARDIS is in need of repairs, the Doctor and Peri are forced to land on Varos, a mining planet whose population is entertained and enslaved by a sadistic system of public torture and execution, and find themselves the latest unwilling subjects in this most extreme form of reality TV.
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos
1985
7.0In Las Vegas young Barty Nicholls inadvertently steals a fortune from the Mob and is slashed to death by a limping hood. Later his girlfriend Cass arrives in London with a stack of stolen credit cards looking for Ben Turtle, famed as a credit card king who she needs as a partner in her credit card swindles. Thrown out of a West End hotel for stealing cards, the pair are soon muscled back in by two heavy Minders to sexually perform at a Mob party in front of Mr. Big. Ben and Cass check out with suit cases of Mafia cash then the real funny money begins to flow and the chase is on.
Funny Money
1982
NRLee, a teenager from Manchester, goes to stay with his uncle Morgan on his remote farm in Wales. Lee struggles to build a relationship with his uncle and make friends with a local boy as Morgan struggles to hold on to his farm
Morgan's Boy
1984
6.0Unstable security chief of an auction house becomes increasingly obsessed with his female neighbor, who's being stalked, and a supposedly cursed jewel that's being auctioned. Is he losing his mind or is the curse real?
The Corvini Inheritance
1984
1970s · 10 titles
6.21944. Léon Duchemin owns a restaurant with his sister. His clients are Germans, Résistance et black marketeers. Léon unwillingly joins the Résistance when a British pilot is shot down and hides in his attic and, through a series of mishaps, he accidentally steals the plans for Hitler's V1 missiles.
Atlantic Wall
1970
Norma is a woman who appears to be leading a very complicated emotional life; she's involved with no less than four men. Michael is the friend she turns to for help in her emotional crisis.
Norma
1974
8.9The Time Lords dispatch the Doctor to the past of the planet Skaro on his deadliest adventure yet — to prevent the creation of the Daleks.
Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks
1975
8.7Rough, tough and politically incorrect in the way that only the best 70's dramas can be, Regan was a pilot film for The Sweeney - one of the major television successes of the last fifty years. Featuring John Thaw as the irascible Detective Inspector Regan and Dennis Waterman as his loyal 'oppo' Detective Sergeant Carter, Regan was an immediate critical and ratings hit, resulting in four series of The Sweeney and two successful feature films. Jack Regan is a good copper, but his tough, intuitive style is becoming unfashionable in a Scotland Yard seeking a new image. When a policeman is mysteriously murdered, Regan breaks all the rules to find the killer - but he finds there are men in the Flying Squad prepared to break him.
Regan
1974
8.0Frightening events unfold that may or may not be figments of Marigold’s imagination.
Enemy
1976
NRWhen Mal Leyton's modern jazz quintet sets out to play an unlikely gig at a college concert, the musicians really need their legendary sense of humour.
One of These Nights I'm Gonna Get an Early Day
1978
5.0London, 1940. Aspiring jazz musician and future comedy legend Terence 'Spike' Milligan reluctantly obeys his call-up and joins the Royal Artillery regiment at Bexhill, where he begins training to take part in the War. But along the way Spike and his friends get involved in many amusing — and some not-so amusing — scrapes.
Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall
1973
9.0A prison visitor becomes involved with a convicted sex offender.
Chariot of Fire
1970
8.0Two female tourists are taken hostage by criminals who are chasing a man recently released from prison who knows the whereabouts of stolen money
Kill Two Birds
1975
7.0A panorama of the Clyde, from Biggar to Brodick, with Billy Connolly as your guide. Directed by Murray Grigor for the Films of Scotland Committee.
Clydescope
1974
Series credits
7.9The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963
7.9The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963
5.7Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
Crown Court
1972
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.3Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Z-Cars
1962
7.3Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Z-Cars
1962
7.0ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
ITV Playhouse
1967
7.0Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.
Bergerac
1981
6.3New Scotland Yard is a police drama series produced by London Weekend Television for ITV from 1972 and 1974. It features the activities of two officers from the Criminal Investigations Department in the Metropolitan Police force headquarters at New Scotland Yard, as they dealt with the assorted villains of the day.
New Scotland Yard
1972
6.3New Scotland Yard is a police drama series produced by London Weekend Television for ITV from 1972 and 1974. It features the activities of two officers from the Criminal Investigations Department in the Metropolitan Police force headquarters at New Scotland Yard, as they dealt with the assorted villains of the day.
New Scotland Yard
1972
7.6The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
The Professionals
1977
5.9The BBC's answer to Dynasty, Howards' Way was launched in 1985 with an enormous 1 million pound budget. The main characters in the show were 'best boat designer in the world' Tom Howard, his boutique running wife Jan Howard, 'I'll have a drink' Jack Rolfe and a nasty man called Ken Masters. It starred Maurice Colbourne.
Howards' Way
1985
7.0Anthology series of dramatic works.
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
1969
7.3A group of convicts and outcasts fight a guerrilla war against the totalitarian Terran Federation from a highly advanced alien spaceship.
Blake's 7
1978
NRPebble Mill at One was a popular British lunchtime magazine, broadcast live from Monday to Friday at 13:00, mainly on BBC1. It was transmitted from the Pebble Mill studios of BBC Birmingham, and uniquely, was hosted from the centre's main foyer area, rather than a conventional studio. In the beginning, visitors to the studios were seen arriving in the background as the programme was transmitted. Reasons for this were: a planned third studio was never constructed on the site, and existing facilities were fully booked for network drama production and local news. Gradually, as the show was successful, the foyer became a studio, and visitors had to use a new entrance. The show ran from 2 October 1972 to 23 May 1986, under various programme Editors including: Terry Dobson, Jim Dumighan, and Peter Hercombe.. For most of that period there were few television programmes transmitted in Britain on any channels during the day. For this reason the programme acquired a unique following from those who found themselves at home at lunchtime. Housewives, students, and those recovering from an illness remember it with fondness for its variety and the problems inherent with live television. Its best remembered theme tune was "As You Please" by the Raymond Lefevre orchestra.
Pebble Mill at One
1972
6.5After a plane carrying three Agents crashes in the Himalayas, they are rescued by an advanced civilisation secretly living in Tibet who grant them enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities.
The Champions
1968
7.0Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. It is an anthology series: each episode has a self-contained story and its own cast. As the title suggests, each story is a thriller of some variety, from tales of the supernatural to down-to-earth whodunits.
Thriller
1973
7.8World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.
Secret Army
1977
8.2Public Eye is a British television drama broadcast from 1965 to 1975 on ITV1. Produced by ABC Television for three series, and Thames Television for a further four, the programme follows the investigations and cases handled by the unglamourous enquiry agent Frank Marker.
Public Eye
1965
6.9Bugs was a British television drama series which ran for four series from April 1995 to August 1999. The programme, a mixture of action/adventure and science-fiction, involved a team of specialist independent crime-fighting technology experts, who faced a variety of threats based around computers and other modern technology. It was originally broadcast on Saturday evenings on BBC One, and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Carnival Films.
Bugs
1995
Drama 61-67 is anthology drama series which took a different title, based on year of transmission, each year. It alternated with Armchair Theatre from ABC in the Sunday evening slot. The series was described at the time as epitomising ATV drama.
Drama 61-67
1961
United! was a British television series which was produced by the BBC between 1965 and 1967, and was broadcast twice-weekly on BBC1. The series followed the fortunes of a fictional second division football team, Brentwich United. The football scenes were filmed on the grounds of Stoke City with Jimmy Hill acting as a technical advisor, and the efforts to achieve authenticity saw the show being criticised by the then management of Wolverhampton Wanderers, who complained that the series was based on their team.
United!
1965
7.5An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
1971
Story Parade specialized in adaptations of modern novels. It was broadcast on June 5, 1964 and repeated on August 28, 1964. The teleplay was by Terry Nation (who invented "Blake's 7" and the Daleks in Dr. Who), and Elijah Baley was played by the late Peter Cushing. It also starred John Carson John Carson as R. Daneel Olivaw and Kenneth J. Warren. The master tapes of the program were erased, however a few clips from the production have turned up in various documentaries about Isaac Asimov's work.
Story Parade
1964
6.5Shy college student Cassie Hughes only wants to be accepted by others, but is only truly loved by her best friend Thelma Bates. Cassie later discovers that she possesses dangerous powers, and is being drawn into a world far beyond her control. And the man that she should fear the most manages to find a way into her heart.
Hex
2004
6.5A short-lived anthology television series from Hammer Studios. Though similar in format to the 1980 series Hammer House of Horror, the Mystery and Suspense series had feature-length episodes, usually running around 70 minutes without commercials. Co-produced by Hammer Studios with 20th Century Fox Television, it is known in the United States as Fox Mystery Theater. Unlike 1980's Hammer House of Horror, all episodes feature American actors as either the leads or in key roles. It first broadcast in the UK on ITV in 1984, though was not simulcast and was shown in different timeslots throughout the various regions.
Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense
1984
7.2Notable as the first British series to feature a female police officer (predating Juliet Bravo by four months), Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes raises her teenage son while navigating a male-dominated police force following the murder of her police commissioner husband.
The Gentle Touch
1980
5.0Mitch is a newspaper reporter with a difference, he cares about the people he reports.
Mitch
1984
7.5Follows the linked fates of nine bank robbers, led by George. It begins with the nine men meeting in prison during their appeal and traces each individual after the group escape from custody.
Villains
1972
5.8Classic Doctor Who duos are reunited as they board a very special TARDIS on a nostalgic voyage through space and time.
Tales of the Tardis
2023
7.4Armed robbers Harry, Terry, and Joe die when the security van that they're robbing catches fire in the Kingsway Tunnel in London. Their widows–Dolly, Shirley, and Linda–find their husbands' schematics and decide to stage it themselves.
Widows
1983
NRCockney East End lad Barry Grieves is a young tennis player with a promising future. Lucy Roberts – a middle-class girl with the same raw talent – also has dreams of making a name for herself on the courts.
Break Point
1982
7.0Eccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.
Virtual Murder
1992
7.0The XYY Man is a 1976–77 British crime thriller television series created by Kenneth Royce, based on his novel series about reformed cat burglar William 'Spider' Scott, recruited by British intelligence for secret missions due to his unique genetic makeup (an extra Y chromosome), which supposedly predisposes him to crime. The plot follows his reluctant work for the secret service and his constant pursuit by the dogged Detective Sergeant George Bulman, leading to spin-offs like Strangers and Bulman.
The XYY Man
1976
In the fictional European country of Amalia, the political interests of the British, American and Communist espionage communities are explored. Eschewing the action formula of its ITV contemporaries, the series dealt more politically oriented plots such as defections to the west, awakening "sleeper" agents and the leaking of official secrets.
The Mask of Janus
1965
6.5After an unusual meteor shower leaves most of the human population blind, a merchant navy officer must find a way to conquer tall, aggressive plants which are feeding on people and animals.
The Day of the Triffids
1981
7.0Napoleon and Love is a British television miniseries produced by Thames Television for ITV, lasting for nine episodes from 5 March to 30 April 1974. The series stars Ian Holm in the title role as Napoleon and depicts his relationships with the women who featured in his life as a backdrop to his rise and fall.
Napoleon and Love
1974
6.0In a near-future 1980s, England is under autocratic rule by a government that uses a paramilitary force known as The Guardians to maintain control, while a fragmented resistance group tries to provoke the state into revealing its true brutality.
The Guardians
1971
7.0Lee, a teenager from Manchester, goes to stay with his uncle Morgan on his remote farm in Wales. Lee struggles to build a relationship with his uncle and make friends with a local boy as Morgan struggles to hold on to his farm.
Morgan's Boy
1984
NRDuring World War I, young Londoner Tom Grattan is sent to live with relatives in rural Yorkshire, where he becomes involved in espionage, sabotage, and other wartime adventures with local friends, facing threats like spies and German POWs.
Tom Grattan's War
1968

