Patrick Barr

Patrick David Barr (13 February 1908 – 29 August 1985) was an English actor born in Akola, British India. Educated at Radley College and Trinity College, Oxford, he competed in the 1929 Boat Race and earned a Blue for rowing. His professional career extended across more than five decades and encompassed approximately 144 film and television appearances.

Barr made his transition from stage to screen with The Merry Men of Sherwood in 1932. Throughout the 1930s he was regularly cast in supporting roles as authority figures and dependable companions, and in 1937 he appeared on Broadway in Young Madame Conti. During the Second World War, Barr registered as a conscientious objector and assisted civilians affected by the Blitz in London's East End before joining the Friends' Ambulance Unit in Africa. While serving there he met Anne "Jean" Williams, whom he married after ten days, the brief courtship extended only because the couple required permission from London to wed.

Returning to his career in 1946, Barr resumed the supporting film work he had undertaken before the war, with earlier credits including The Case of the Frightened Lady (1940) and The Blue Lagoon (1949). In the early 1950s he moved into British television, where he achieved a level of popularity that surpassed what his film roles had brought him, including a seven-episode run in Inspector Morley: Late of Scotland Yard (1952). That visibility allowed him to secure more substantial roles and higher fees for his film work in the 1950s and 1960s, a period that included The Dam Busters (1955), Room in the House (1955), Saint Joan (1957), Next to No Time (1960), and Billy Liar (1963).

On television, Barr appeared in Doctor Who in 1967, playing Hobson in the serial The Moonbase, and later featured in a 1970 episode of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) as well as an episode of The Avengers. He portrayed Richard the Lionheart in the television series Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene. His later screen credits included The First Great Train Robbery (1979) and Octopussy (1983). In 1981 he contributed his voice to the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, playing the role of Gamling.