The Times (29/May/2008) - Obituary: Lloyd Lamble

(c) The Times (29/May/2008)

• keywords: Joyce Grenfell, Lloyd Lamble

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Obituary: Lloyd Lamble

Lloyd Lamble, actor, was born on February 8, 1914. He died on March 17, 2008, aged 94

A familiar presence in postwar British radio, stage, cinema and television, the actor Lloyd Lamble was born in Melbourne, the youngest of four boys. Both his father and grandfather had been musicians and young Lloyd sang in the Wesley college choir before becoming a junior radio announcer at the age of 18. His stage breakthrough came in 1934 as a last-minute replacement as the juvenile lead in Fresh Fields.

During the 1930s and 1940s he toured both Australia and New Zealand, and made his film debut in Strong is the Seed (1949). For a while he was the president of the Actors Equity before accusations that he was a communist forced him to emigrate to Britain on a forged passport.

He played countless authority figures in British films over the next two decades, especially policemen, including a recurring role in the St Trinian's series as Superintendent Samuel Kemp-Bird, or "Sammy" as his hapless fiancee WPC Ruby Gates (played by Joyce Grenfell) calls him. As the series progressed poor Ruby was never any closer to marriage while the unctuously manipulative Sammy would once more smooth-talk her into again taking her life in her hands infiltrating the eponymous boarding school for ferocious young girls.

His scores of TV roles included appearing in Crossroads, The Prisoner and The Naked Civil Servant (1975). He continued to appear on stage until he was nearly 80, including a lengthy run on the West End in Me and My Girl.