The son of a respected physician Richard Edward Bebb Williams was born in London on 12th January 1927. He was educated at Highgate School, London and continued his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he graduated from in 1947 with a degree in English. After developing an interest in acting at school Bebb continued at University appearing in many Marlowe Society theatre productions.
He began his career in local repertory theatre
productions where he needed to change his name as there was
already a British actor called Richard Williams. So he became Richard Bebb. He
became a prolific performer in theatre before breaking into radio due to his
mellifluous voice. Possibly his most famous role in the medium is as Second Voice in
the 1954 BBC radio production of Under
Milk Wood opposite Richard Burton as First Voice. His obituary in The Guardian estimated that he had been
heard in over 1,000 broadcast radio plays at the time of his death[2].
Bebb's first professional stage appointment was in
a stage production of Macbeth
produced by Michael Redgrave at Aldwych. He then joined Buxton Rep under the
manager Anthony Hawtrey, the illegitimate son of actor Charles Hawtrey. It was
whilst at Buxton that Bebb first met the actress Gwen Watford who would
eventually become his wife on 8th January 1952 following a ceremony
in Stoke Newington. They remained married until her death in 1994 from cancer
at the age of 66. The couple had two sons.
By the mid-1940s he was put under contract, along with up and coming stars
Richard Burton and Bryan Forbes, to the then powerful theatre management group
HM Tennant. He toiled in small roles in West End theatre
productions and in 1947 he played in Tennant’s production of Macbeth at the Aldwych theatre. His
first TV appearance was for the BBC with a live transmission of the play The Fur Coat (19th September
1949) from the Regent Theatre in Hayes, Middlesex. Bebb played Patrick Graham. His
first appearance in a television drama was an edition of the BBC
Sunday Night Theatre as David Blake in “Promise of
Tomorrow” (16th April 1950), a study of backstage life written and
produced by Michael Barry. The cast also included Marius Goring and John
Laurie. His first role in a cinema release came with an uncredited appearance
as Frank Weller in The Final Test
(1953) which starred Jack Warner as a cricketer playing his last match.
The Actor – Then and
Now was the title of
lectures given by Bebb at the British Institute of Recorded Sound during April
1972, one of many public lectures throughout his life and career. One his
later ones was on The Hamlets of John
Gielgud on 3rd December 1996 for the Society for Theatre
Research at the Art Workers Guild situated in Queens Square, London. When Bebb
had retired from screen acting he still undertook voice over and audio work and
in 2003 he narrated the twelve disc CD release of Forgotten Voices of the Great War. Only six weeks before his death
Bebb completed a recording of Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. This was his final
professional engagement as an actor.
Bebb was also a lifelong collector of gramophone records and was a committee
member of the British Institute of Recorded Sound, a forerunner to the British
Library Sound Archive. Bebb helped to oversee the launch of the vinyl record
label Historic Masters which issued rare recordings of opera singers. Bebb was
also a football fan which he described as “just butch ballet, dear boy[3]”
He was also an expert on the American Civil War hero Colonel George Gouraud and
delivered several lectures on the subject. Bebb died on 12th April,
2006, aged 79
[3]
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/may/26/guardianobituaries.media (accessed
14th June 2017)
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