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Actor John Challis, who died of cancer at the age of 79, was familiar to millions of viewers of John Sullivan’s long-running BBC television series Only Fools and Horses (1981-2003), in which he played the used car salesman Boycie. .
The series portrays the aspirations of Derek “Del Boy” Trotter (David Jason) and his plans to make money – “this time next year we will be millionaires,” he optimistically assured his brother Rodney (Nicolas Lyndhurst). After a humble start, the series, with its flawed yet lovable characters and optimism in the face of disaster, has grown to be a huge hit, and its characters are national treasures.
Terrance Aubrey Boyce was one of the crowd of regulars who popped up in Nag’s Head to join in on Del Boy’s escapades or, more often in the case of Boycie, to make fun of him when they went wrong.
Challis invested the character of a swaggering swagger, a nasal twinge, a beautiful line in sarcastic asides and a jerky machine-gun laugh. Flashy and often seen blowing a cigar, he was ostentatious about his wealth but vulnerable to gossip about the past promiscuity of his wife, Marlene (Sue Holderness), and his own alleged lack of manhood. He and Holderness bounced back – “Come on, Marlene, let’s go home and ignore each other for the evening” – and become offscreen friends.
Challis appeared in the second episode of the series, and the role gradually became a mainstay – Boycie involved Del Boy in a diamond scam on the 1985 Christmas special To Hull and Back; tried adoption in From Prussia With Love (1986) (“amazing innit, whatever you buy her has something missing” he observed when Del Boy produced a baby girl instead of the promised boy ); and mingled with the Mafia in the ambitious two-part 1991 film Miami Twice, set in the United States (“We were having a great vacation … and then they [the Trotters] shows up, and within 15 seconds some bastards shoot at us ”). Despite all of his rivalry with Del Boy, however, there was an undercurrent of reluctant respect that exemplified the warmth that permeated the series.
When Only Fools and Horses ended in 2003 (after a final first curtain scheduled for 1996 – seen by a record 24 million viewers – in which the Trotters become millionaires), Boycie and Marlene went on to star on their own show. , the Sullivan-spin-off writes The Green Green Grass (2005-09), which found the couple forced to move to a Shropshire farmhouse to escape retaliation from a pair of thugs. He lasted four sets.
Challis was born in Clifton, Bristol, the only child to Alec, a civil servant, and Jean (née Harden), a theater teacher and avid amateur actress. Alec’s work took them to London when John was a baby and after a period of traveling the family settled in Tadworth, Surrey.
He was educated at Belmont Preparatory School in Dorking and at Ottershaw Boarding School. He did not take a baccalaureate and became a trainee real estate agent before delivering groceries while playing in a skiffle group. Emboldened by the encouraging words of a former drama school principal with whom his mother had arranged a reunion with, but unwilling to take formal training, he responded to an ad in the Stage newspaper for the Argyle Youth Theater and got a job playing Pinocchio in schools, earning £ 11 per week for 24 shows.
From 1963 he was playing small roles and performing stage management duties as a representative and he got a decent role in the movie Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? (1964), which unfortunately disappeared without a trace. His West End debut was in Portrait of a Queen (Vaudeville Theater, 1965), after which he joined the RSC, spending a happy summer in Stratford-upon-Avon playing small roles opposite David Warner’s Hamlet. and Prince Hal by Ian Holm, Henry V and Malvolio (1966).
Subsequent theatrical work included successful collaborations with Tom Stoppard – Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land in South Africa (1977) and the West End (Arts Theater 1978), Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth (US Tour, 1979) and On the Razzle (National Theater, 1981). He has also appeared in Rattle of a Simple Man (Savoy, 1981), Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay (Criterion, 1983), The Rivals (National Theater, 1983), Relatively Speaking (with Holderness, in Eastbourne, 2001 ), and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hackney Empire, 2013). He became an example of pantomime villainy, memorable as King Rat in Dick Whittington, Captain Hook in Peter Pan (both on multiple occasions), Abanazar, Fleshcreep, and the occasional Ugly Sister.
After his debut in a few episodes of the soap opera The Newcomers (1967), Challis settled into television work – his towering figure and steely presence making him an ideal cast on both sides of the law. Although he was cheerful and easy to work with, he excelled in hard and hard parts. Action director Douglas Camfield has used it many times: on villainous henchman duty in The Sweeney (1975); giving a formidable turn as the brutal mercenary Scorby in the 1976 Doctor Who adventure, The Seeds of Doom – fighting fiercely with Tom Baker’s Doctor before being dragged to an aquatic death by deadly vegetation; and as Corporal Dupré in Beau Geste (1982).
His many police roles included appearances in Z-Cars (as Sergeant Culshaw, 1972-75) and Coronation Street (1974-77) and the role of Chief Inspector Humphreys in an episode of Sullivan’s Citizen Smith ( 1980), a performance – based on an ad The Boredom of Acquaintance with Challis – which appealed to the writer so much that it led to him being cast for the role of Boycie.
Despite a healthy CV filled with good television roles, acting was a precarious profession, and his experiences working in a garden center while struggling for the job inspired the sitcom Bloomers (1979), written by James Saunders . Even so, he could not be chosen for the role based on himself, having to settle for playing another policeman (in one episode); Richard Beckinsale took the lead but passed away with just five of the six episodes planned in the box.
Boycie, however, made Challis instantly recognizable and he was able to sustain a long television career into the 21st century, playing Captain Peacock in the one-time cover of Are You Being Served? (2016) and Monty Staines in Benidorm (2015-18).
He published two volumes of autobiography – Being Boycie (2011) and Boycie and Beyond (2012) – and Boycie in Belgrade (2020), a documentary on the popularity of Only Fools and Horses in Serbia: he was extremely proud to be appointed honorary citizen of the country. He was planning a one-man show tour of his career, using his skills as a storyteller and imitator, but that was interrupted just three weeks ago by poor health.
His first three marriages, to director Carol Robertson and actresses Debbie Arnold and Sabina Franklyn, ended in divorce, but in 1990 he found lasting happiness with costume designer and wardrobe mistress Carol Davies ( née Palmer). The couple married in 1995 and moved to Hereford, where they were a popular and active member of the local community, becoming patron of the nearby Ludlow Festival and playing Malvolio for free at Ludlow Castle in 2011.
A lifelong Arsenal fan, he has also sponsored the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, supported a number of animal charities and successfully embraced social media without succumbing to any of its pitfalls: actively engaging with fans and form a charming and incongruous friendship with rapper Ice-T on Twitter.
Carol survives him.
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