Olivier spotted him there and cast him as a flashy gangster in The Front Page (1972), again directed by Blakemore, which toured to Australia. He then used an Italian accent to appear with Olivier in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall’s adaptation of Eduardo de Filippo’s dramatic comedy Saturday, Sunday, Monday (1973-74) directed by Franco Zeffirelli. During the show the actors eat a real meal on stage, but one occasion the meat was off. “Much mirth ensued and the great man [Olivier] read us a lecture the following day,” he said.
He was Big Brother in “1984”, Ridley Scott’s advert for Steve Jobs’s new Apple Macintosh computers, and Einstein for BBC Two’s Horizon in 2005. “They could have gone for anybody, any big name, and they chose me,” he said with a smile. He also toured as the composer Edward Elgar in Justin Pearson’s half-play, half-concert Stirring the Spirit and was an elderly loner with only a dog and magpie for company in the unsettling short film One for Sorrow (2011).
Nine years ago Graham returned to play Parker in Thunderbirds Are Go!, a 50th-anniversary reboot with Rosamund Pike as Lady Penelope. Last year he reprised the Daleks for a colourised version of the original story. He had no regrets about being out of the limelight, telling the Daily Mirror: “If it happens people notice you, that’s great – but I don’t do it for that. I love the work.”
David Graham, born July 11 1925, died September 20 2024