Christopher Beeny(1941-2020)

British light leading man, on stage from 1951 and in films from 1953. Having initially aspired to be a dancer, Beeny joined the Ballet Rambert company in London at the age of eight but later switched to acting and eventually graduated from RADA in 1959. By then he had already achieved a measure of popularity on TV as a 12-year old juvenile in the original British soap opera The Grove Family (1954). He ultimately became best known as the smart-alecky footman and chauffeur Edward in Upstairs, Downstairs (1971). During a seven year hiatus from acting between 1963 and 1970, Beeny worked in the building industry. He resumed his career on the small screen in Softly Softly: Task Force (1969) and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971). He then replaced Reg Varney as the foreman Tony in the relaunch of The Rag Trade (1975), played a birdbrained undertaker in the funeral sitcom In Loving Memory (1969) and was latterly seen as an inept debt collector in Last of the Summer Wine (1973). His appearances on the big screen have been infrequent. His second wife was the singer Diana Kirkwood.