Danny Sewell

Dennis Edward Sewell, known professionally as Danny Sewell, was born in London on 18 November 1930 and died in Sarasota, Florida, on 18 May 2001. The son of a Hoxton printer and bookmaker father and a florist mother, he was the younger brother of actor George Sewell. Sewell's career spanned professional boxing, physical training, and a lengthy stage and screen acting career that included originating the role of Bill Sikes in the 1960 stage musical Oliver!

Sewell showed early promise as a boxer, winning a schoolboy championship before turning professional in 1946 at the age of sixteen. He competed as a light-heavyweight and heavyweight, finishing undefeated across seven bouts with five knockouts and was regarded as a contender for the World Heavyweight title. His boxing career was cut short when he contracted polio at eighteen during a worldwide epidemic, spending a year in an iron lung at a hospital in Spokane, Washington, with his treatment funded by British sportsmen. He recovered and resumed boxing but later acknowledged that he had lost his competitive edge. After leaving the sport, Sewell served as a Physical Training Instructor during his National Service in the Royal Air Force, for whom he also boxed, and subsequently worked as a physical training instructor aboard the Queen Mary and other Cunard Line ships. He later managed a pub in Bethnal Green before turning to acting. In 1953 he married Betty Frances Anderson, with whom he had four children: Laura, Daniel, George, and Andrew. That marriage was later dissolved and Sewell remarried.

His first stage role came in 1959 with One More River at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. That same year he appeared on television as First Waterman in Nick of the River, and in 1960 took on several further screen roles including Sam in Where the Party Ended, a Soho layabout in No Hiding Place, and a Boxer in Armchair Theatre. He also had uncredited roles in the 1960 films Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Criminal. His television work continued into the 1960s and 1970s and included Avery in Partners in Crime for The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre in 1961, Sgt. Major Roughage in Bonehead in 1962, Ryder in Dixon of Dock Green in 1968, Billy McCance in Z-Cars in 1968, Gideon the Gaoler in Rogues' Gallery in 1968, Teddy Scammell in The Expert in 1969 alongside his brother George Sewell as Louis Scammell, and Weston in Man at the Top in 1973.

The defining role of Sewell's career was Bill Sikes in the stage musical Oliver!, which he created when the production opened in 1960. He remained in the role for the best part of six years, including the original Broadway production, which premiered in early 1963, and several national tours. Among those who auditioned against him for the role was Michael Caine, who later stated he had cried for a week after failing to win the part. Sewell recorded the role on both the UK and US cast albums of Oliver! He was disappointed not to be cast as Sikes in the 1968 film adaptation, a role that went to Oliver Reed.

Beyond Oliver!, Sewell's stage work included playing Chitterlow in the second national tour of Half a Sixpence in 1966 and Luke in the original Off-Broadway production of Lady Audley's Secret in 1972. His Broadway career, which spanned 1963 to 1979, encompassed four productions. In 1967 he took over the role of Joey in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming on Broadway, and he returned to that role in an Off-Broadway revival in 1971, for which he received an Obie Award in 1972. In 1974 he took over the role of Harry Dalton in Equus on Broadway, and in 1979 he appeared in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man. His Broadway credits also include the play Oliver Oliver. Sewell retired to Sarasota, Florida, with his second wife, actress Donna Gerdes, and died there in 2001.