Trivia

Memorable as one of TV's first portrayers of Dr John H. Watson, opposite Ronald Howard, in 1954's "Sherlock Holmes" series.

British character actor, often seen as military or clubroom types in British films and on television. Trained at RADA, where his classmates included Ida Lupino, Anthony Quayle, Vivien Leigh and Trevor Howard. Had a long career as a voice actor in radio drama from the 1930's. He won the Daily Mirror's National Radio Award as outstanding radio actor for 1952-53. He was cast in the part of Dr. Watson in the TV series Sherlock Holmes (1954) on the strength of his voice work for the BBC Home Service on "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" in 1948.

During World War II, he served with the RAF as a navigator, rising to the rank of sergeant.

All his radio work earned him the epitaph 'the man with the 1,000 voices.

The exact cause of his relatively early death at age 55 has been disputed; newspaper reports in 1969 claimed that he had "choked to death on his own vomit".

He was the British dubbing voice of Sergey Bondarchuk in Othello (1956).

Grandson of writer Francis Marion Crawford

He did the narration on the short film The Queens Colours.