Alec McCowen

Acting

Alec McCowen

Born — Died

1925-05-26 — 2017-02-06

Place of birth

Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

80 titles

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   Alexander Duncan McCowen, CBE (26 May 1925 – 6 February 2017) was an English actor. He was known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. Description above from the Wikipedia article Alec McCowen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

The South Bank Show poster
5.6

The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

The South Bank Show

1978

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970

BBC Play of the Month poster
5.2

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

BBC Play of the Month

1965

The Wednesday Play poster
5.2

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

The Wednesday Play

1964

Bergerac poster
7.0

Jim 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 · 6 titles

1980s · 13 titles

Never Say Never Again poster
6.1

James Bond returns as the secret agent 007 to battle the evil organization SPECTRE. Bond must defeat Largo, who has stolen two atomic warheads for nuclear blackmail. But Bond has an ally in Largo's girlfriend, the willowy Domino, who falls for Bond and seeks revenge.

Never Say Never Again

1983

Cry Freedom poster
7.0

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Cry Freedom

1987

Henry V poster
7.1

In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.

Henry V

1989

Personal Services poster
6.0

Fed up with working hard just to scrape by, Christine Painter comes up with a bold plan to become the madam of a brothel and earn her financial freedom: she opens a house of spanking to fabulous reviews.

Personal Services

1987

The Assam Garden poster
7.3

An insecure, aggressive widow of a tea garden manager reluctantly develops an affectionate relationship with an Indian housewife and her family.

The Assam Garden

1985

The Secret Adversary poster
6.9

After a chance meeting and an indiscreet conversation, childhood friends Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley become involved in a convoluted intrigue led by a mysterious man known simply as Mr. Brown.

The Secret Adversary

1983

Forever Young poster
9.0

A lonely young boy idolizes his local priest. An old acquaintance of the priest shows up one day, and the boy learns that his idol isn't exactly what he seems to be--it turns out that many years before, the priest had betrayed his friend, and now his friend has come back for revenge.

Forever Young

1983

Twelfth Night poster
6.8

Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her to help him woo the Lady Olivia, who doesn't want the Duke, but finds that she likes the new messenger the Duke's sending. Then, of course, Viola's brother shows up, and merry hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle and his cohorts are trying to find some way to get back at Olivia's officious majordomo, Malvolio.

Twelfth Night

1980

The Importance of Being Earnest poster
5.4

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

The Importance of Being Earnest

1988

Squaring the Circle poster
5.0

An account of how Lech Walesa and the "Solidarity" trade union confronted the might of Communist dictatorship in Poland.

Squaring the Circle

1984

A Dedicated Man poster
10.0

Edith is a hotel waitress, single and in her mid-forties, with a major infatuation on Maurice Silcox, the hotel's head waiter. But Edith becomes distraught when she learns that Maurice has been offered a more prestigious job at a luxury hotel. Maurice explains to Edith that he can only take the position if he is married. Unaware Edith's crush, Maurice proposes. She accepts and they set up a household for business purposes only -- complete with a photograph of a make-believe son. As Edith continues to live with this charade, her obsession with Maurice and the "son" grows, leading to a shocking and disturbing outcome!

A Dedicated Man

1982

Max Miller: I Like The Girls Who Do poster
NR

A celebration of Max Miller , comedian and star. Presented by Gerald Scarfe with Max Bygraves Charlie Chester , Doris Hare Jean Kent , Alec McCowen, Tommy Trinder , Max Wall, Bernie Winters and Max Miller 'I'm ready for bed - anybody?' Max Miller , dazzling in chintz and gaudy plus-fours, one foot on the footlights, leering and howling with delight, confronted his audience. Sexual innuendo was his game. He trod a dangerous line, just this side of respectability, across the Music Halls of the 30s and 40s. On the stage of the Hackney Empire, with chorus girls and full supporting acts, Gerald Scarfe re-creates Max Miller 's rise from the back streets of Brighton to the top of the bill. The most outrageous comedian of his day, Max was banned by the BBC, in trouble over the Royal Command Performance, admired and hated by the comics of his age - and ours

Max Miller: I Like The Girls Who Do

1989

No artwork available
NR

A summer evening in Edinburgh, 1776. The ailing philosopher David Hume has an unexpected visitor.

Dialogue in the Dark

1989

1970s · 10 titles

Frenzy poster
7.1

London is terrorized by a vicious sex killer known as The Necktie Murderer. Following the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, down-on-his-luck Richard Blaney is suspected by the police of being the killer. He goes on the run, determined to prove his innocence.

Frenzy

1972

Hanover Street poster
5.7

Margaret is a nurse in England during WW2, and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls for David, an American pilot.

Hanover Street

1979

The Hawaiians poster
5.5

A wanderer returns home only to find political turmoil, disease and romantic difficulties.

The Hawaiians

1970

Travels with My Aunt poster
6.0

At his mother's funeral, stuffy bank clerk Henry Pulling meets his Aunt Augusta, an elderly eccentric with more-than-shady dealings who pulls him along on a whirlwind adventure as she attempts to rescue an old lover.

Travels with My Aunt

1972

When the Actors Come poster
NR

On a cold day in January 1850, a group of travelling actors arrive out of the snow at the remote country estate of Count Horvath, in eastern Hungary. The Count is delighted to have an excuse for re-opening the old family theatre, closed since his childhood. But other members of his household wonder whether these unexpected guests should be made quite so welcome.

When the Actors Come

1978

Henry V poster
6.2

Insulted by the Dauphin, the newly-crowned King Henry V gathers his troops for war. But Henry must convince his men that he has left his wild days behind, and prove himself as a leader.

Henry V

1979

Triple Exposure poster
NR

Len climbs Veronica and Percy’s fence intent on burglary, but what really happens next? The three acts of the play show the incident from each of the three perspectives.

Triple Exposure

1972

Stevie poster
7.2

For a poet with a gift for crafting words into barbs, Stevie Smith lives a relatively conventional life. Sheltered in a London suburb, she spends her days engaged in tedious housework, crafting verse and conversing with her aunt. But while her body may be committed to drudgery, Stevie's mind is constantly trying to break free, which causes her to rail against religion and middle-class values, and prevents her from finding happiness with a man interested in her.

Stevie

1978

A Man of Morality poster
10.0

A moral philosopher at a university finds his own morals under scrutiny.

A Man of Morality

1976

Private Lives poster
6.8

Divorced couple Amanda and Elyot have both recently remarried. On their honeymoons, however, they discover that they have accidentally booked adjoining suites at the same hotel. Containing some of Coward's best dialogue, the play revolves around the agonising realisation that despite their ferocious incompatibility, they are still drawn to each other.

Private Lives

1976

1960s · 4 titles

The Agony and the Ecstasy poster
7.0

During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

1965

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner poster
7.2

A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy’s reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution by impressing its Governor through his prowess as a long distance runner. He is encouraged to compete in an upcoming race, but faces ridicule from his peers.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

1962

In the Cool of the Day poster
5.8

After he mends a marital rift between a vacationing young couple, the bored, fragile wife falls hopelessly in love with the husband's ex-colleague who is married to a long-suffering and emotionally and physically scarred woman. The couple soon runs off to Greece together to pursue the romance.

In the Cool of the Day

1963

The Witches poster
6.0

Following a nervous breakdown, Gwen takes up the job of head teacher in the small village of Haddaby. There she can benefit from the tranquillity and peace, enabling her to recover fully. But under the facade of idyllic country life she slowly unearths the frightening reality of village life in which the inhabitants are followers of a menacing satanic cult with the power to inflict indiscriminate evil and death if crossed.

The Witches

1966

1950s · 13 titles

A Night to Remember poster
7.7

The sinking of the Titanic is presented in a highly realistic fashion in this tense British drama. The disaster is portrayed largely from the perspective of the ocean liner's second officer, Charles Lightoller. Despite numerous warnings about ice, the ship sails on, with Capt. Edward John Smith keeping it going at a steady clip. When the doomed vessel finally hits an iceberg, the crew and passengers discover that they lack enough lifeboats, and tragedy follows.

A Night to Remember

1958

The Cruel Sea poster
6.9

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer.

The Cruel Sea

1953

Time Without Pity poster
6.5

Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”

Time Without Pity

1957

The Long Arm poster
6.9

Scotland Yard detectives attempt to solve a spate of safe robberies across England beginning with clues found at the latest burglary in London. The film is notable for using a police procedural style made popular by Ealing in their 1950 film The Blue Lamp. It is known in the US as The Third Key.

The Long Arm

1956

The Deep Blue Sea poster
4.9

A woman is unhappy in her marriage to a boring, stiff judge, so she takes up with a wild-living RAF pilot, who ends up being more than she can handle.

The Deep Blue Sea

1955

The One That Got Away poster
6.8

Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.

The One That Got Away

1957

The Silent Enemy poster
5.9

The Mediterranean, 1941/42 - Axis forces are using frogmen and manned torpedoes to attack previously impregnable harbours. The Allied forces need to come up with something to answer this threat, which they find in the form of Lt. Lionel "Buster" Crabb.

The Silent Enemy

1958

Town on Trial poster
6.5

When an attractive young girl is murdered, suspicion falls on several members of the local tennis club. It falls to Police Inspector Halloran to sort out all the red herrings, and finally after a confrontation at the top of the local church spire, arrest the culprit. Another fascinating look at what life was like in Britain during the 50's.

Town on Trial

1957

The Divided Heart poster
6.8

During World War II, a German woman, Inga, goes missing and is presumed dead. Her infant son is placed in an orphanage where, years later, he's adopted by a childless couple. The adoptive parents' happiness is shattered when Inga reappears and insists on custody of her son.

The Divided Heart

1954

No artwork available
NR

British iTV adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's Rope that aired as a part of ITV Play of the Week.

Rope

1957

The Doctor's Dilemma poster
6.5

Four doctors face a serious dilemma when the beautiful wife of a TB-stricken artist begs one of them to cure her brilliant, but amoral, husband.

The Doctor's Dilemma

1959

The Matchmaker poster
NR

Can the ever-resilient Mrs. Levi melt the heart of the eternally sour-tempered Mr. Vandergelder?

The Matchmaker

1954

The Good Companions poster
7.0

The story revolves around the Dinky Doos, a provincial musical troupe living from hand to mouth.

The Good Companions

1957

Series credits

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

The South Bank Show poster
5.6

The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

The South Bank Show

1978

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970

BBC Play of the Month poster
5.2

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

BBC Play of the Month

1965

BBC Play of the Month poster
5.2

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

BBC Play of the Month

1965

The Wednesday Play poster
5.2

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

The Wednesday Play

1964

The Wednesday Play poster
5.2

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

The Wednesday Play

1964

Bergerac poster
7.0

Jim 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

Omnibus poster
7.2

Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

Omnibus

1967

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

Thirty-Minute Theatre poster
4.2

An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.

Thirty-Minute Theatre

1965

No artwork available
5.1

The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.

Film '72

1971

Sunday Night Theatre poster
3.5

Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.

Sunday Night Theatre

1950

BBC2 Play of the Week poster
7.0

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

BBC2 Play of the Week

1977

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales poster
6.5

An animated adaptation of twelve of Shakespeare's best-known plays. The series was produced by S4C for the BBC, but animated by some of the foremost artists of Soyuzmultfilm, the former Soviet Union's main animation studio. Each 26-minute play is directed by a different animator, in a wide variety of styles: cel animation for Macbeth, stop-motion puppets in Twelfth Night, and paint on glass for Hamlet.

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales

1992

Orson Welles' Great Mysteries poster
6.8

Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries is a British television anthology series produced by Anglia Television for the ITV network and broadcast between 1973 and 1974. The series presents standalone adaptations of classic mystery, crime, and supernatural stories drawn from literary sources including Dickens, Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Balzac, Maugham, O. Henry, and others. Each episode is framed by original introductory and closing sequences performed by Orson Welles, who serves as the series’ host and sole recurring on-screen presence. These segments, written and directed by Welles (uncredited), function as stylized narrative framing devices rather than dramatic participation in the stories themselves. The dramatic content of each episode is performed by separate casts and directors, with no continuing characters or serialized narrative, establishing the series as a unified television anthology rather than a collection of standalone films.

Orson Welles' Great Mysteries

1973

Centre Play poster
7.0

Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.

Centre Play

1973

NET Playhouse poster
7.3

NET Playhouse is an American dramatic television anthology series produced by National Educational Television. NET subsequently merged with WNDT Newark, New Jersey to form WNET and was superseded by the Public Broadcasting Service. American television anthology series of wide range of genres, from history and drama, to fantasy, and science fiction. Fiction novels, stories, stage plays, fairytales, and historic events are dramatized in each episode.

NET Playhouse

1966

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime poster
6.7

Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring '20s style, and devious mysteries abound as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mix marriage and mystery solving.

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

1983

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime poster
6.7

Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring '20s style, and devious mysteries abound as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mix marriage and mystery solving.

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

1983

No artwork available
8.0

An anthology of single plays offering up adaptations of either of prominent stage plays or novels.

Festival

1963

Storyboard poster
8.0

Highly regarded anthology from the 1980s presenting a diverse range of high-quality single dramas that would serve as pilots for possible future series.

Storyboard

1983

Storyboard poster
8.0

Highly regarded anthology from the 1980s presenting a diverse range of high-quality single dramas that would serve as pilots for possible future series.

Storyboard

1983

Theatre Night poster
NR

A series of dramas featuring staged theatre plays.

Theatre Night

1985

No artwork available
7.5

Studio 4 is an anthology drama series utilising BBC Television Centre's Studio Four, and running for two series in 1962 on BBC One. It was envisaged as a sequel to Storyboard, a similar anthology series which had been transmitted the previous year.

Studio 4

1962

No artwork available
5.0

Anthology of self-contained dramas that aired from 1977 to 1978.

The Sunday Drama

1977

Mr. Palfrey of Westminster poster
5.7

Mr. Palfrey is a mild-mannered, but highly skilled counter-espionage agent employed by a small, unnamed department within British intelligence. He and his team tackle complex cases, often involving government cover-ups and internal affairs.

Mr. Palfrey of Westminster

1984

Longitude poster
7.0

The fascinating story of John Harrison who, in the 18th century, believed he could make a clock that would work on board a ship—and so solve the problem of finding longitude at sea.

Longitude

2000

No artwork available
NR

Series of 20-minute monologues by famous British actors, portraying historical characters or reading poetry.

Solo

1970

Armchair Theatre poster
6.0

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.

Armchair Theatre

1956

David Copperfield poster
7.0

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

David Copperfield

2000

No artwork available
NR

A series of six plays about relationships, examining themes including love, friendship, family dynamics, and personal growth, often highlighting the complexities and humour in human connections.

Plays for Pleasure

1981