Geoff Hinsliff, who has died aged 86, was an actor finest recognized on tv for his position in Coronation Road as Don Brennan, a mild-mannered cab driver turned gambler, love cheat, kidnapper, tried assassin and arsonist. Don’s life ended prematurely when he drove his automobile right into a viaduct – and, in the midst of all this, he was in a turbulent marriage to Ivy, a religious Catholic struggling to recover from the deaths of her first husband, Bert Tilsley, and son, Brian.
Hinsliff took the half after 1 / 4 of a century enjoying character roles on display and treading the boards in classical elements on the Outdated Vic theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Firm.
However he additionally had a supporting position on tv that had already made him a well-known face – within the first sequence of the sitcom Brass (1983-84) because the forelock-tugging George Fairchild gratefully working for the ruthless mill proprietor, Bradley Hardacre (performed by Timothy West), unaware that his spouse is having an affair together with his boss. Yorkshire-born, he beloved the best way it despatched up so many assumptions and cliches about northern working-class life.
When the Granada Tv producer Invoice Podmore, liable for this send-up of “bother at t’ mill” dramas, created by John Stevenson and Julian Roach, returned to Coronation Road and was decided to launch Ivy (Lynne Perrie) right into a second marriage, he solid Hinsliff as Don, the widowed, cheerful cabby driving Ivy and her pal Vera Duckworth (Liz Daybreak) to a nightclub to have a good time Vera’s birthday in 1987.
Hinsliff, involved at committing to a long-term performing half, took some time to simply accept the provide when advised that Podmore deliberate marriage ceremony bells. As soon as he did, the Leeds-born actor rejected the concept Don must be Irish, feeling a “pretend accent” would backfire.
A summer season 1988 marriage ceremony adopted, with Hinsliff shocked on the velocity of courtship and lack of obvious heat between Don and Ivy on display. “Lynne was for a really romantic relationship,” Hinsliff advised Daran Little, creator of The Coronation Road Story: Celebrating Thirty-5 Years of the Road. “She was for display lovers and, frankly, I assumed they have been far too previous for display lovers. I noticed them as Darby and Joan, a relationship based mostly on companionship, not intercourse.”
However, the wedding was joyful for a number of years, till the couple have been torn aside by Ivy’s fuming at his playing – he misplaced his cab to Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs) in a poker sport – and her uncompromising views, significantly on the funeral of her son in 1989 (she wished Brian buried as a Catholic with a mass, whereas his spouse, Gail, performed by Helen Price, didn’t).
Don had an affair and, on being dumped, tried to kill himself by crashing his automobile on a rustic lane. It left him together with his decrease left leg amputated and, when Ivy turned to drink, he returned to her, however as two folks dwelling separate lives. He then grew to become obsessive about the hairdresser Denise Osbourne (Denise Black), making obscene cellphone calls and main Ivy to move off to a non secular retreat, the place she died of a stroke.
A nasty enterprise deal when Don purchased the storage from Baldwin in 1996 despatched him on a downward spiral. A 12 months later he sought revenge, setting Mike’s manufacturing facility alight, then kidnapping his spouse, Alma (Amanda Barrie), and driving her into the River Irwell, though each survived. Later he took Mike’s automobile keys and tried to run over the manufacturing facility boss, lacking and crashing into the viaduct and perishing in a ball of flames.
Hinsliff was the second-youngest of 4 sons and one daughter born to Ethel (nee Jones), a tailor, and Frank Hinsliff, an engineering manufacturing facility foreman. On the age of 15 he left Middleton secondary trendy faculty – the place an English instructor inspired him to behave – to work as a trainee window dresser in a Leeds division retailer. He additionally carried out as an newbie with the Leeds Service of Youth Gamers.
After nationwide service with the Royal Military Pay Corps, Hinsliff gained a scholarship to Rada. He graduated in 1960 and went straight to the Outdated Vic to tackle a small position in Franco Zeffirelli’s breathtaking manufacturing of Romeo and Juliet, starring John Stride and Judi Dench. He continued on the Outdated Vic to play Vintner in Henry IV, Half 1, and Gasparo in The White Satan (each 1961).
Different small elements adopted with the RSC on the Aldwych, London (1964-65), together with one in Peter Brook’s groundbreaking manufacturing of Marat/Sade (1964). Hinsliff labored with one other celebrated director, Lindsay Anderson, each on stage because the scrum half Brian Copley in David Storey’s play The Altering Room (Royal Court docket, 1971) and within the movie O Fortunate Man! (1973).
His tv debut got here as a Roman soldier within the nine-part Shakespeare cycle The Unfold of the Eagle (1963). Hinsliff was then prolific on the small display in every part from Z Vehicles (two roles, 1963 and 1975) and A Household at Conflict (as a corporal, 1970) to I, Claudius (as Rufrius, 1976) and Physician Who (two roles, 1977 and 1979).
He took two elements in Coronation Road earlier than enjoying Don. In 1963, he was Jerry Sales space’s biking pal Vincent, rejected by Jerry’s fiancee Myra to be his finest man. Then, in 1977, he performed Eric Bailey, who together with his pal Les Fox conned Renee Bradshaw and Wager Lynch into accepting a double date away from the road, failed to show up and stole alcohol from the nook store.
In 1990 Hinsliff had a break from Coronation Road to star within the BBC radio drama September Tune because the standup comic Billy Balsam. His uncommon movie appearances included enjoying a wi-fi operator in A Bridge Too Far (1977).
In 1967 Hinsliff married Judy Seal. She and their daughters, Gaby and Sophie, survive him, together with 4 grandchildren, Matt, Jude, Reuben and Freddie, and a brother, Ken.
