Terence Rigby

Terence Christopher Gerald Rigby (2 January 1937 – 10 August 2008) was an English actor born in Erdington, Birmingham, whose career spanned stage, film, and television across five decades. He was educated at St Philip's School before training at RADA, and completed his national service with the Royal Air Force prior to beginning his professional career.

Rigby made his first significant mark in the theatre through his association with Harold Pinter's work. He originated the role of Joey in Peter Hall's 1965 production of The Homecoming, and reprised that performance when the production transferred to Broadway in 1967. Hall again cast Rigby a decade later, this time as Briggs in the world premiere of Pinter's No Man's Land at the National Theatre in 1975, a production that featured John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson and subsequently moved to Broadway in 1976. In 1977, Rigby appeared in another National Theatre production, Robert Bolt's State of Revolution, playing Joseph Stalin opposite Michael Bryant's Lenin, a portrayal that earned him considerable acclaim.

Rigby returned to Broadway twice more in the final years of his career. In 1995, he appeared in Jonathan Kent's Almeida Theatre production of Hamlet, starring Ralph Fiennes, taking on the roles of the Ghost, the Player King, and the Gravedigger. In 1999, he joined Peter Hall's production of Amadeus, playing Count Orsini-Rosenberg alongside David Suchet and Michael Sheen.

On television, Rigby was widely recognized during the 1970s for his recurring role as police dog-handler PC Snow in the long-running series Softly, Softly: Task Force. His other television credits included Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, The Saint, Callan, Public Eye, Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Rumpole of the Bailey, Lovejoy, Our Friends in the North, Midsomer Murders, The Beiderbecke Affair, The Beiderbecke Connection, and Kings Oak, in which he played motel boss Tommy Lancaster. He also portrayed Dr Watson opposite Tom Baker's Sherlock Holmes in the BBC's 1982 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

His film work included Get Carter (1971), Watership Down (1978), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Elizabeth (1998), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and Colour Me Kubrick (2006).

Rigby died at his home in London on 10 August 2008 from lung cancer. Segments from an autobiography he had begun shortly before his death were incorporated into Rigby Shlept Here: A Memoir of Terence Rigby 1937–2008, written by his longtime friend, television and radio dramatist Juliet Ace, and published in November 2014. The book also draws on correspondence, interviews with friends and theatrical colleagues, and Ace's own diaries.