Harry Locke

Harry Locke (10 December 1912 – 7 September 1987) was an English character actor.^[1]

He was born in London. He began acting in his teens, and appeared with the Questors Theatre Company in Ealing from 1936, when known as Lionel Locke.^[2] From 1940, he served in the military, but returned to acting after demobilisation. He married, and lived in South Leigh, Oxfordshire, where he became friends with poet and playwright Dylan Thomas. Their friendship was described by Locke in a 1970s interview with the radio journalist Colin Edwards.^[3]

Locke was a familiar face in three decades of British cinema, playing small parts such as assorted cockneys, working men, clerks, porters and cab drivers, with appearances including George in Civvy Street (1946), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Reach for the Sky (1956), Carry On Nurse (1959), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), Alfie (1966), The Family Way (1966), and The Creeping Flesh (1973).^[4][5]

His numerous roles on TV included Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as a night porter in 1969. In 1972 he played Platon Karataev in the BBC production of War and Peace, with his final role, playing a gardener, in an episode of Just William, in 1977.^[4]

He married Joan Cowderoy in 1943, and Cordelia Sewell in 1952.

• Harry Locke at IMDb
• South Leigh residents talk about Dylan Thomas