With a career that spanned seven decades and more than 140 productions, the actor Charles “Bud” Tingwell became the doyen of Australian film and television; so much so that he was accorded a state funeral. His career began and ended in his home country, but he spent 17 years in the 1950s and 1960s in Britain where he worked in the theatre, radio, film and television.
Charles Tingwell was born in the Sydney seaside suburb of Coogee. He was known as Bud even before his birth. His first role, in 1939, while he was still at school, was as Bob Cherry in a radio broadcast of Billy Bunter. The following year he was engaged as a cadet at a Sydney radio station, the country’s youngest announcer.
In 1941, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and flew Spitfires as part of the 680 Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, covering the German-occupied eastern Mediterranean. Tingwell ended the war as a flight lieutenant with 87 Squadron RAAF flying Mosquitoes over the Dutch East Indies.
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He returned to Australia in 1945 and the following year was offered a role as a control tower officer in the film Smithy, about the aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, provided he brought his own uniform. In 1952 he made his first Hollywood film, The Desert Rats, with Richard Burton, James Mason and Chips Rafferty. But he declined a seven-year contract in Hollywood and returned to Australia.
For 18 months he toured Australasia with Googie Withers and John McCallum in two plays before being offered a role in London with Peter Finch in the film The Shiralee. For six years he played the Australian doctor Alan Dawson in the long-running medical drama Emergency Ward 10, which was filmed live twice a week from 1957 and watched by half the television-viewing population. In 1961 he took leave from the series to play Inspector Craddock in four MGM productions featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. In every one, Tingwell’s young inspector (with a more than respectable English accent) is outfoxed by the wily Jane Marple, played by the incomparable Margaret Rutherford.
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In 1973 Tingwell returned home to play another inspector, Reg Lawson, in the television series Homicide. His resonant voice and polished demeanour fitted him for roles as a barrister, judge, headmaster and doctor. He was a doctor in the television series The Sullivans, The Prisoner and All Saints. He was the headmaster in the film Puberty Blues, the judge in Evil Angels, based on the case in 1980 of the baby Azaria Chamberlain who was said to have been snatched by a dingo, and he chaired the court martial in Breaker Morant. He also produced a mini-series and directed episodes of a number of television productions. In 1993 he played the part of Gramps in the satirical series The Late Show and this led to his role as the retired silk Lawrence Hammill, QC, in the celebrated comedy The Castle.
In his last performance he played Sir Winston Churchill in Menzies and Churchill at War. He still had a script beside his bed at his death.
Tingwell is survived by two children.
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Charles “Bud” Tingwell, actor, was born on January 3, 1923. He died on May 15, 2009, aged 86