Acting
Raymond Mason
Born 1924-04-17 · Great Bridge, Staffordshire, England, UK
During Raymond Mason’s 20 years of acting in the ITV soap opera Crossroads, he played five different roles. “I don’t think anyone ever noticed,” he said, “and I don’t put it down to versatility.” For trained actors in the days when there was just a handful of drama colleges and fewer vocational courses, the pool of talent was by definition smaller. Many performers found themselves appearing more than once in the same programmes. For Raymond, the roles that he played on British television over 40-odd years numbered more than 1,000, and he appeared in scores of commercials at home and overseas. One of the reasons for Raymond’s success was that he was comfortable in a supporting role and, crucially, adept at not stealing a scene. Through a combination of timing and practised self-effacement he allowed the main star, or joke, to shine. Modest about taking the credit, he effectively enabled the skit. In the late 1960s and 1970s, when comedy was spread across just three TV channels, Raymond appeared in Saturday-night programmes including The Morecambe & Wise Show — he described the double act as “a joy”, The Two Ronnies and alongside Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson and the like. In a 1979 episode of Fawlty Towers called The Kipper and the Corpse, his character attempts to retrieve his hat while Basil is trying to hide the body of a deceased guest. John Cleese later described him as “one of my favourite actors”. The middle child between an older and a younger sister, Raymond was born in 1924 in Great Bridge, Staffordshire, and brought up in Tettenhall near Wolverhampton. His exposure to light entertainment started at an early age as his father, George, who had fought in the First World War, played the piano and organ, wrote his own compositions and was a local bandleader. After shutting up the fish and chip shop in Wolverhampton that he owned with his wife, Elizabeth, George would stuff a keyboard glockenspiel into his bike’s front carrier and set off
Acting credits
6.2This historical drama is an account of the early life of British politician Winston Churchill, including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament.
Young Winston
1972
6.0A hard-nosed Chicago cop is sent to London to bring back an American mobster being held for extradition. Brannigan in his Irish-American way brings American law to the people of Scotland Yard but has to contend with a stuffy old London first.
Brannigan
1975
6.3When architect Stephen Booker loses his partnership, he finds jobs hard to come by, and with money in short supply, he unwittingly becomes involved in a daring scheme to rob one of London's biggest bank vaults.
Loophole
1981
6.31973 BBC TV movie adaptation of the book by Lewis Carroll.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
1973
7.0A devestating, yet bracing look at a family whose proximity to each other belies the decay of their relationships, The Wild Duck is just as modern today as it was when first staged. When Gregors Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals, his idealist nature refuses to tolerate the dreamworld of lies the family is living. However, in his bid to force the Ekdals to see the truth, the skeletons he unearths destroy the family that he wanted to redeem.
The Wild Duck
1971
NRSally and George appear a happy middle class couple. However, they are childless, which is starting to cause tension. While George ponders an illegal business venture, Sally starts to grow closer to her piano teacher.
Piano Lessons
1976
6.6An asocial and enigmatic office clerk refuses to do his work, leaving it up to his boss to decide what should be done with him.
Bartleby
1970
6.2Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then his father's ghost directs him to seek revenge.
Hamlet
1980
NRPatrick and Judith have everything prepared for the arrival of their first child but when he is born, they are quite unprepared for the crisis they must face.
John David
1982
8.2Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jone star in festive special about a family with a video camera. Christmas usually means a little over-indulgence, but to the Aldershot family it is an orgy of hitherto uncharted proportions.
Smith and Jones: The Home-Made Xmas Video
1987
NRA watchmaker finds his livelihood is threatened by cheaply imported digital watches.
Cries from a Watchtower
1979
6.0When his brother vanishes without a trace, American Robert Stone goes to his last known location: a remote English village. Robert's investigation leads him to the mansion of Jonathon Lanceford, a man obsessed with the Gothic works of Edgar Allen Poe, and his beautiful and enigmatic niece Dominie...
Kiss Me and Die
1974
Mary Abbott is a schoolteacher whose husband has to go away for the night on business. After returning home from a party she has an unexpected caller.
The Loving Lesson
1971
NRA man's life is turned upside down when he receives a mysterious photograph in the post.
A Photograph
1977