Dudley Sutton (6 April 1933 – 15 September 2018) was an English actor. Active in radio, stage, film and television, he was best known for his role of Tinker Dill in the BBC Television comedy/drama series Lovejoy.
On stage, he played the title role in the original production of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964), and transferred with it to Broadway theatre the following year. From 25 May 1966, he appeared in Tango, a play by Slawomir Mrozek at the Aldwych Theatre alongside Patience Collier, Peter Jeffrey, Mike Pratt, and Ursula Mohan under director Trevor Nunn."Lively Choice of Plays for Aldwych." The Times (London, England) 22 April 1966: p.17. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
Sutton appeared in many films during his career, including Rotten to the Core (1965), Crossplot (1969), The Devils (1971), Madame Sin (1972), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Fellini's Casanova (1976), Edward II (1991), and The Football Factory (2004).
Among his many television appearances were his roles as Tinker Dill in Lovejoy (1986 and 1991–94) – whose friendship with Lovejoy, the title character, and expertise in the antique trade was the backbone of the show – as Mr Carter in the Beiderbecke Trilogy and as Oleg Kirov in Smiley's People (1982). He also featured as Max Deller, a career criminal involved in a Robbery of gold bullion in The Sweeney episode "Golden Boy" and in a Christmas special episode of Porridge (1976) as the somewhat unstable, prison trusty-turned-hostage-taker Reg Urwin, with Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale.
In 1999, he appeared in the BBC Radio play Cosmos the Mystic Dog. In 2003, Sutton starred opposite Edward Hardwicke in David Bartlett's film The Goodbye Plane, and in 2004, he made an appearance in the soap opera EastEnders for sixteen episodes, playing Wilfred Atkins, a conman.
In 2003, Sutton found inspiration from the internet "where apparently people say that every time you masturbate God kills a kitten." From that statement, he developed a comic piece about "a young man's emotions and feelings, from the moment he's a baby tugging at his cock onwards." In August 2003, he performed the one-man Killing Kittens show at Edinburgh's Underbelly.
Sutton followed up Killing Kittens with a second autobiographical show Pandora's Lunchbox in 2006. Following a performance as William Blake in Peter Ackroyd's BBC television series The Romantics, Sutton joined the cast of Albion Rising at St Giles in the Fields Church, London, in April 2007. He reprised the role in the film of the same name in 2009.
Sutton had a small role in the British teenage drama Skins as Freddie's granddad. He also appeared in the episode of Holby City broadcast on 15 March 2011 as a patient who fell down an escalator in a shopping centre. In 2012, he featured in the video "Once And For All" by Clock Opera. "Clock Opera 'Once and for All' by Ben Strebel" , Promo News, 4 January 2012. Retrieved 2012-06-07.
Sutton also appeared in episode three of the BBC comedy series Family Tree ("The Austerity Games"), which was first broadcast in July 2013, and was a guest star in episode three of the BBC series Boomers in 2014. He played William Makepeace in Emmerdale in 2014.
In 2015 he appeared as a Roman Catholic rector in the BBC TV series Father Brown episode 3.6 "The Upcott Fraternity". He also appeared in two episodes of the BBC's day time show, Doctors, in August 2015. He narrated the 2016 documentary The Future of Work and Death. In November 2017 he played the lead role in a video for the Tom Chaplin song "Midnight Mass".
Personal life
Death
Filmography
External links
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