Richard Briers | British actor, 79
British actor Richard Briers, an avuncular comic presence on TV and movie screens for decades, died Sunday, Feb. 17, at his London home, his agent, Christopher Farrar, said. A former heavy smoker, Mr. Briers had suffered from emphysema.
British actor Richard Briers, an avuncular comic presence on TV and movie screens for decades, died Sunday, Feb. 17, at his London home, his agent, Christopher Farrar, said. A former heavy smoker, Mr. Briers had suffered from emphysema.
Mr. Briers starred in the 1970s sitcom The Good Life as Tom Good, a man who decides to quit the urban rat race for a life of self-sufficiency in suburbia.
The show, which aired in the United States as Good Neighbors, contrasted the back-to-the land Goods with their conventional neighbors the Leadbetters. The sitcom made stars of its core cast - Mr. Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith, and Paul Eddington.
In later life, Mr. Briers became well-known for Shakespearean roles. He joined director Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 after deciding, he said, that "I had gone as far as I could doing sitcoms."
He also appeared in several Branagh-directed films, including Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Peter's Friends, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
In 1989, Mr. Briers was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts.
Mr. Briers married the actress Anne Davies in 1956. They had two daughters. - AP