Norman Beaton

Norman Beaton

The most familiar of the handful of black actors able to sustain a career in British television from the 1960s to the 1990s, Norman Beaton became particularly associated with spirited patriarch roles, most famously as the eponymous barber of Desmond's (Channel 4, 1989-94), but was a much more versatile actor than his popular image acknowledged. A highly expressive performer who was equally at ease with weighty parts and light comedy, he won great respect on stage and screen but, like many black actors of the time, frequently found consistent television or film roles, particularly ones worthy of his talents, thin on the ground. Born 31 October 1934 in Georgetown, Guyana (then British Guiana), he did some amateur acting while training as a teacher, and developed a parallel career as a Calypso singer, scoring a no. 1 hit in Trinidad and Tobago with 'Come Back Melvina' in 1959. Arriving in Britain in 1960, he became Liverpool's first black teacher, but the experience was not an entirely happy one, and he was soon back making music, hanging out with the likes of Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and the other 'Liverpool poets' and watching from the sidelines as his peers found success. He entered the theatre in 1965 with the musical drama Jack of Spades, for which he wrote both the scenario - inspired by his own experiences as a young West Indian in Liverpool - and the music. With a flurry of successes as a stage composer, narrator and, increasingly, actor, it looked like his career was beginning to take off.

stories,westindians

1934-10-31

Person

6143

TEXT

Norman

Beaton

1994-12-13