Dennis Burgess (February 18, 1926 – November 3, 1980) was a British

television actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...

born in Neath, Glamorgan, Wales. He married Glenys Maria Hare at Neath, in 1958. Burgess came from

Port Talbot Port Talbot (, ) is a town and community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, situated on the east side of Swansea Bay, approximately from Swansea. The Port Talbot Steelworks covers a large area of land which dominates the south ...

, attended

Port Talbot Secondary School Dyffryn Comprehensive was a split-site 11–16 years comprehensive school based in Port Talbot, Wales. It was situated on two sites. Year 7 and 8 pupils were taught in the lower school on Talcennau Road in the centre of Port Talbot, whilst Yea ...

and worked as a drama teacher for most of his adult life. He dedicated a lot of his time to helping his father care for his invalid mother, and it wasn't until after she had died that Burgess became a professional actor at 47 years of age, moving from Wales to the south east of England. His first professional role was in a film starring his boyhood friend Richard Burton, who had helped him into the profession. Burton and Burgess had remained great friends, and a series of letters written by the screen legend to his old friend, have previously been exhibited at the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth. They included an invitation to Burton's 50th birthday party in 1975, from his then wife Elizabeth Taylor.Wales Online, "Letters from Richard Burton on show at National Library", 11 February 2009
Accessed 18 August 2013 Burgess went on to feature in The Professionals,

The Sandbaggers ''The Sandbaggers'' is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, ''The Sandbaggers'' examines the effect of espionag ...

, and

The Elephant Man Joseph Carey Merrick (5 August 1862 – 11 April 1890), often erroneously called John Merrick, was an English man known for having severe deformities. He was first exhibited at a freak show under the stage name "the Elephant Man" and then we ...

, and played the recurring role of Flambeau in ''

Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936 written by English author G. K. Chesterton. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intui ...

''. His second career was to be a short one. On the evening of 3 November 1980, Dennis Burgess was driving to his home in

Chesham Chesham (, , or ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, north-west of central London, and part of the London commuter belt. It is in the Chess Valley, surrounded by farmla ...

when he suffered a massive heart attack and veered off the road. He was found dead at the wheel of his car, in the middle of a cricket pitch, in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. He was 54.

Filmography

References

External links

* British male film actors British male television actors 1980 deaths 20th-century British male actors 1926 births {{UK-screen-actor-stub