‘Easy Harford, a professional soldier must remain cool in times of stress’
We seem to be on a roll when it comes to erasing familiar childhood faces from the planet this week.
Michael A. James, better known as Michael Jayston, had the distinction of probably looking even more like Tsar Nicholas II than old Nikolasha did, appearing as the sad-eyed emperor in Nicholas & Alexandria.
African wars buffs will, of course, better remember him from Zulu Dawn as the real-life Colonel (later Lt. Gen) Henry Hope Crealock, a hard-bitten campaigner who had fought in the Crimea and across India and China before Isandlwana and had to live with Lord Chelmsford’s terrible choices in the latter war, although he was able to carry the line “I do not make the strategies you wish to comment on. I am only His Lordship’s secretary,” in the film.
He also surfaced repeatedly in Dr. Who— back when it was still good, although not opposite Tom Baker who was ironically an unforgettable Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandria— Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and dozens of other flickering screeens over the past half-century. He was even reportedly in the running for portraying James Bond at one time or another.
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Born on 29 October 1935 in West Bridgford, he did his National Service in the 1950s with the British Army of the Rhine– crossing paths with Roger Moore who was also in the area at the time– before embarking on his stage career in 1962. He passed on Monday, aged 88.
