Lewis Fiander(1938-2016)

Australian stage, screen and TV actor Lewis Fiander was educated at Trinity Grammar School and made his acting debut at the National Theatre in Melbourne in 1954. At the age of 18 he moved to Sydney to broaden his skills as a radio actor and in due course perfected a varied gallery of dialects and accents. On the stage, he specialized in Shakespearean comedy, including "Twelfth Night" and "The Merchant of Venice", though in later years taking on diverse roles in musical plays, works by Ibsen and O'Neill, even as Professor Higgins in a Victorian Arts Centre production of "My Fair Lady".

Fiander moved to London with the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in the early 60's and spent the next two decades in the U.K., often side by side with some of the giants of his profession, including Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. In 1966, he toured New Zealand with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The following year he landed the prized role of Mr. Darcy in a BBC production of Pride and Prejudice (1967). A break in his stage and TV work permitted him to act on the big screen in two back-to-back horror films: Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) and as one of the victims in Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972). He is also remembered by fans of Doctor Who (1963) as the drug smuggling scientist Professor Tryst in the notorious Tom Baker serial Nightmare of Eden: Part One (1979). Tryst's strange Germanic accent (Fiander's own idea) - combined with the square spectacles and histrionics - seems somehow reminiscent of Peter Sellers's Dr. Strangelove. Either that or something from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).

Back on the stage, Fiander enjoyed perhaps his greatest success starring as John Adams in the 1970 London New Theatre production of "1776", a play with music about the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. He had another palpable hit as actor-singer in 1986, teaming up with Patricia Hodge for "Noël and Gertie", a compilation of musical numbers originally written by Noël Coward and performed in tandem with Gertrude Lawrence. In the late 80's, Fiander returned to Australia and appeared several times on television, notably in the mini-series Tanamera - Lion of Singapore (1989) and Bangkok Hilton (1989).