John Challis

John Spurley Challis was an English actor born on 16 August 1942 at St Andrews Nursing Home in Clifton, Bristol. He died on 17 September 2021, aged 79, having been diagnosed with cancer in 2019. An only child, Challis moved with his family to southeast London when he was one year old and later grew up in Epsom after a further move to Tadworth, Surrey. He attended Ottershaw School, a state boarding school near Woking. His father, Alec, worked as a civil servant at the Admiralty, while his mother, Joan, was a drama teacher with a strong interest in amateur dramatics. After leaving school, Challis worked briefly as a trainee estate agent before departing to join the Argyle Theatre for Youth.

Challis built an extensive stage career that included work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s and the National Theatre. His first West End appearance came in 1965 at the Vaudeville Theatre in Portrait of a Queen. In 1977 he took a leading role at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond in Sam Walters' production of Václav Havel's The Memorandum. His National Theatre credits included On the Razzle in 1979, The Rivals in 1983 alongside Michael Hordern, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor with Frank Finlay. A 1993 National Theatre tour saw him appear in Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane alongside Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Waller, and Christopher Villiers. He also performed with Sue Holderness in Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking, Time and Time Again, and How the Other Half Loves, as well as the National Theatre's production of Boycie and Marlene.

In 1979, Challis appeared on Broadway in Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth, the latter being Tom Stoppard's play, which he had toured across the United States that same year. His Broadway appearance placed him among a select group of British stage actors who carried their theatre work to American audiences during that period.

Returning to Shakespeare in 1995, Challis appeared in Richard III and A Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. In 2000 he played Malvolio in Twelfth Night at Stafford Castle, and in 2011 he performed in As You Like It at Ludlow Castle. Pantomime was also a recurring part of his stage work; he played Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Plaza Theatre in Stockport and reprised the role in 2018 at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. He appeared as Ebenezer in Aladdin at Weston Playhouse in winter 2011–12 and as King Rat in Dick Whittington at the Plaza over Christmas 2013 and New Year 2014. In 2013 he contributed occasionally as narrator on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Live Tour, and in 2014 he launched a one-man theatre tour titled Only Fools and Boycie, charting his life before, during, and after his time playing Boycie.

On television, Challis began his career in 1967 with a role in the BBC soap opera The Newcomers. That same year he appeared in Coronation Street as a thief who stole Ena Sharples' handbag, a series to which he later returned in a recurring role as Detective Sergeant Norman Phillips from 1975 to 1977. Between 1971 and 1975 he made regular appearances in Z-Cars as Sergeant Culshaw, and in 1971 he played photographer Jim Wright in Crossroads. In 1969 he appeared in the gangster drama Big Breadwinner Hog. The 1979 BBC sitcom Bloomers, starring Richard Beckinsale, was written drawing on Challis's own experience of working at a garden centre during a break from acting.

A role in John Sullivan's sitcom Citizen Smith led directly to Challis being cast as Terrance Aubrey "Boycie" Boyce in Only Fools and Horses, which ran on BBC Television from 1981 to 2003 and became his most recognized work. Sullivan subsequently created a spin-off series for Challis, The Green Green Grass, which ran from 2005 to 2009 and filmed its outdoor scenes at Challis's home at Wigmore Abbey and the surrounding fields and villages. He later played Monty Staines from the seventh series onward in the ITV sitcom Benidorm, appearing from 2015 to 2018. His many other television credits include Dixon of Dock Green, The Sweeney, Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom, Dracula, Beau Geste, Juliet Bravo, Ever Decreasing Circles, Chance in a Million, The Bill, One Foot in the Grave, Open All Hours, The New Statesman, Don't Wait Up, Soldier Soldier, My Family, In Sickness and in Health, and Heartbeat. In 1997 he appeared in the Channel 4 mockumentary Brass Eye episode "Decline," during which he was deceived into believing Clive Anderson had been shot by Noel Edmonds. In 2006 he took a cameo role in the BBC's The Impressionists as a stationmaster at the Gare Saint Lazare, and in 2008 he guest-starred in Last of the Summer Wine as a retired jewel thief. In 2012 he narrated the National Geographic Channel series Strippers: Cars for Cash, and in 2020 he made the documentary Boycie in Belgrade, examining the enduring popularity of Only Fools and Horses in Serbia, a country that had granted him honorary citizenship.

On BBC Radio 4, Challis played an interrogator in James Follett's Rules of Asylum, broadcast in 1973, and from 2001 to 2004 he played Dibden Purlew in Getting Nowhere Fast.

Challis was married four times. His first wife was Carol Robertson, a stage manager and actress. His second and third wives were actresses Debbie Arnold and Sabina Franklyn. He married his fourth wife, Carol Davies, in Brighton in 1995, and in 1998 the couple purchased the Abbot's Lodgings at Wigmore Abbey Grange in Adforton, Herefordshire, which they subsequently renovated. He had no children. Challis wrote two volumes of autobiography, Being Boycie in 2011 and Boycie & Beyond in 2012, and in 2016 published Wigmore Abbey: The Treasure of Mortimer, documenting the renovation of his home's gardens. He was a patron of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and of the Rose Theatre in Kidderminster, and was a committed Arsenal supporter. Through Twitter he developed a friendship with American actor and musician Ice-T, with the two exchanging gifts despite never meeting in person. Following his death, tributes were paid by Only Fools and Horses co-stars Sir David Jason and Sue Holderness, as well as Ice-T, Paul Chuckle, Piers Morgan, and Sheila Ferguson.