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Alan Badel
Born	Alan Fernand Badel (1923-09-11)11 September 1923 Rusholme, Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died	19 March 1982(1982-03-19) (aged 58) Chichester, Sussex, England
Years active	1952–82
Spouse	Yvonne Owen ​(m. 1942)​
Children	Sarah Badel

Alan Fernand Badel (/bəˈdɛl/; 11 September 1923 – 19 March 1982) was an English stage actor who also appeared frequently in the cinema, on radio and on television and was noted for his richly textured voice, which was once described as "the sound of tears".

Early life

Badel was born in Rusholme, Manchester, and educated at Burnage High School. He fought in France and Germany during the Second World War, serving as a paratrooper on D-Day. He partially lost his hearing when a shell exploded near him.

Career

In his early career he played leading parts, including Romeo and Hamlet, with the Old Vic and Stratford companies.

Badel's earliest film role was as John the Baptist in the Rita Hayworth version of Salome (1953), a version in which the story was altered to make Salome a Christian convert who dances for Herod in order to save John rather than have him condemned to death. He portrayed Richard Wagner in Magic Fire (1955), a biopic about the composer. He also played the role of Karl Denny, the impresario, in the film Bitter Harvest (1963). Around the same time he played opposite Vivien Merchant in a television version of Harold Pinter's play The Lover (also 1963) and as Edmond Dantès in a BBC television adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (1964).

Badel also played the villainous sunglasses-wearing Najim Beshraavi in Arabesque (1966) with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. He played the French Interior Minister in The Day of the Jackal (1973), a political thriller about the attempted assassination of President Charles de Gaulle. In the political television drama Bill Brand (1976) he played David Last, the government's Employment Minister, a left-wing former backbench MP who had recently joined the front bench after 30 years in the House of Commons. One of his last roles was that of Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg in the Paramount film Nijinsky (1980). A television adaptation for the BBC of The Woman in White (1982) by Wilkie Collins, in which Badel played the role of Count Fosco, was shown posthumously.

Personal life

Badel married the actress Yvonne Owen in 1942 and they remained married until his death from a heart attack in Chichester, aged 58. Their daughter, Sarah Badel, is an actress.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

1. "Alan Badel". Film and TV Database. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
2. G. M. Miller, BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names (Oxford UP, 1971), p. 9.
3. "Sergeant Alan F Badel". ParaData. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
4. TV Times, 1973, 71 (22), p.7
5. "Alan Badel". Film Forever. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 5 June 2016.

External links

• Alan Badel at IMDb
• Alan Badel at the Internet Broadway Database

• 1923 births
• 1982 deaths
• Military personnel from Manchester
• English male film actors
• English male stage actors
• People from Rusholme
• British Army personnel of World War II
• 20th-century English male actors
• Male actors from Manchester
• Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners
• British Parachute Regiment soldiers