“Because of having asthma at the age of
eight until the time I went to drama school, I knew how to project, because
asthma… similar to Donald Sinden – who had exactly the same experience as me,
when he got to drama school his inter-costal diaphragmatic muscles had been so
overused as a result of asthma that he didn’t need to learn how to project his
voice. What we both had to learn to do was actually to use the consonants: the
lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, which is what I learnt at drama school.[1]”
David graduated in 1964 and found work in local rep in both his home county of
Wiltshire as part of the Salisbury Playhouse Company and in Birmingham at the
Alex Theatre. This was a solid training ground for the young actor where he had
to learn how to quickly turn around and prepare for productions often on a
weekly basis. David also adopted a new stage name for his work as an actor.
“Well there was about twelve members of
Equity all at the same time who had the name Townsend and I thought ‘I can’t
possibly use that name, I’ve got to find something else.’ And then I discovered
in my family tree that there was branch called the Simeon-Townsends and I
thought that’s it, and that’s where the word Simeon came from. I thought that’s
a good enough name and there is nobody else I can think of with it. Generally
speaking it’s a Christian name.[2]”
His television debut was as the killer Frank Hudson in the first season of the
BBC’s Sexton Blake (25th
September – 25th December 1967) series starring Laurence Payne in
the title role. Simeon cited his honest and open features as the reason he was
cast as a murderer.
“The reason they
chose me I think was because I looked so innocent so obviously it couldn’t be
him, and so in the end when it turns out he’s murdered his brother, his father
and various other poor unfortunates he was the last person.[3]”
However the television roles didn’t come that quickly after this debut. It was
another year before David would return to the medium with a supporting role as
a police constable in 'The Dancing Men' (16th September 1968), an episode of Peter Cushing’s TV interpretation
of Sherlock Holmes for the BBC. 1969
was busier and saw David take on roles in both BBC and ITV series including
playing a kitchen porter in 'Immature,
Unsatisfactory Work' (2nd May 1969), the fourth episode of the
hard hitting ITV crime thriller Big
Breadwinner Hog. He had a supporting role as a prisoner in 'A Question of Guilt' (16th
May 1969), an episode of the BBC forensic detective series The Expert. Further small roles for the year include playing a
student in the police drama series Special
Branch episode 'A New Face' (22nd
October 1969), portraying another student in 'Backlash' (27th October 1969), an episode of short lived BBC
science fiction series Counterstrike, and featuring as a ‘welfare man’ in an
episode of The Doctors transmitted
24th December 1969.
As a new decade began he undertook further small roles; a waiter in the ITV Playhouse instalment 'Rumour' (2nd March 1970), a
TV reporter in the Paul Temple storyline 'The Black Room' (3rd May
1970) and a desk clerk in 'The Quickness
of the Hand' (26th May 1970), part of the BBC spy series Codename. His most recalled role for
the year was as the UNIT soldier Private Latimer in the Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who adventure 'Inferno' (episode 1 – 9th May
and episode 3 – 23rd May 1970). He also took his first cinema role,
uncredited, as a post office clerk in the film Connecting Rooms (1970).
Working on the film left a lasting impression on David. “I do look back and think I was so lucky to have met and worked all the wonderful people I did. I particularly remember working with Bette Davis. It was on a film Connecting Rooms. My casting agent said ‘David you’ve got to go down to Pinewood tomorrow, be there about 7:15am, they will show you all the stuff.’ I didn’t even know what I was doing. I got there and this American said ‘Mr Simeon I got ya script here. Would you like to go in a room and go through it and then we’ll take you and see Miss Davis.’ And I said ‘Sorry? Miss Davis?’ And he said ‘Yeah Miss Davis. Miss Bette Davis.’ And I thought ‘Bloody hell! What am I dong here!’
Most of the dialogue was mine. So I had about three quarters of an hour to try
and learn it! Anyway then I was led to the caravan she had in the backlot and I
was introduced and sat down. I don’t know what is was but then I suddenly said
‘Miss Davis do you mind if I have a cigarette?’ And she said ‘Honey if there’s
one thing you should know about me is that I smoke like a haystack!’ and there
she was in front of me with a huge great pile of them she’d already had that
morning.
Anyway this was on April 1st 1969 and we all know what happens on
the first of April every year. There’s a picture of this in one of the books
about Bette Davis though it doesn’t say it’s a still from the film Connecting Rooms. Anyway I chap is
taking pictures of her and I’m stood just behind her thinking ‘this is odd.
What’s going on?’ Anyway in this scene she’s lying in bed and there’s a knock
at the door and all of a sudden and this man, who is the second assistant
director, dressed up in space suit with a big potted plant.
He then proceeds to walk forward and present to her and she went bananas with
laughter. Thank God! She went on and on and on. And this was a good thing as
this meant the rest of the afternoons filming was going to be great. All of a
sudden she’s just getting ready for the scene she was going to do with me and
then they replay her laughter from upstairs off a recording and she just fell
on the floor in front of me and rolled over and over cackling with laughter.
She got up. She put her hands on my shoulders and said ‘I gotta tell you
something. When I was young my father said to me I’ll give a dollar if you can
laugh like a lady. I never got the dollar! She just laughed and laughed like a
cackling drain and it just went on and on like that for ages. Eventually we got
to my scene, which was in a post office, and suddenly I went wrong with the
lines and we had to do it again. And she said ‘don’t worry I was an extra
once.’ I’ve never ever forgotten that morning. She was a strange creature she
really was.[4]”
David popped up as the character Jumbo in 'Into
the Dark' (10th February 1971), an episode of the drama series A Family at War. He also appeared in
the Comedy Playhouse episode 'The Importance of Being Hairy' (6th
May 1971). A second Doctor Who role
was as the BBC TV reporter Alistair Fergus in the first episode of 'The Daemons' (22nd May 1971).
His final TV appearance for the year was as Don Walker in the Z Cars episode 'The Dirty Job Part 2' (5th October 1971). He also made
his second film appearance playing an estate agent in the crime thriller Freelance (1971) which starred Ian
McShane.
The first television role for 1972 was in the Play for Today production 'Ackerman,
Dougall and Harker' (10th February 1972) as the character Davies.
This was followed by a small role as a mechanic in the fifth instalment (1972) of
a BBC version of The Moonstone. David’s
first appearance in the sitcom The Liver
Birds was in the episode 'Valentine’s
Day' (7th April 1972) in the role of Tony. He could be seen as an
art gallery assistant in 'Mister Drake
Reveals All' (27th April 1972), an episode of the Arthur Lowe
starring comedy drama It’s Murder but Is
It Art? His final few roles TV for the year included Mr Dunkerley in the
first instalment (31st August 1972) of an adaptation of the H G
Wells book Love and Mrs Lewisham and
Flight Sergeant Bert May in 'For Better,
For Worse' (4th October 1972), an episode of the wartime drama
series The Pathfinders.
David made his second appearance in an episode
of Comedy Playhouse, with the more
substantial role of Ian Hollis in 'Marry
The Girls' (1st February 1973). He continued in comedy with the
role of Peter Mitchell in the sixth episode (22nd October 1973) of
the Leslie Phillips comedy vehicle Casanova
73. His biggest role of the year, in fact his biggest role to date, was as
the regular character Detective Constable Mickey Finn in the ATV police drama
series Hunter’s Walk. The character
made his debut in the episode 'Local
Knowledge' (11th June 1973) and would continue to be a regular
character in episodes until the final episode of the series, 'Kicking and Screaming' (24th
August 1976). It was on Hunter’s Walk
that David would first meet director John Cooper and producer Nicholas
Palmer who would later cast him in 'Murrain'.
More comedy work came with the recurring role of Bruce in No Strings (4th October – 8th November 1974),
a series which was headlined by Rita Tushingham and Keith Barron, and the
sitcom Second Time Around in the
episode 'Father to Be (or Not to Be)' (14th February 1975).
However, his most notable television role of the year was as the vet Alan Crich
in the Against The Crowd play 'Murrain'.
Next time I will look at David's career post-Murrain...
[1]
David Simeon interviewed by Kate Harris for the Theatre Archive Project, http://sounds.bl.uk (accessed 13th
January 2019)
[2]
David Simeon interview with the author, 24th February 2019
[3]
ibid
[4] ibid
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