Martin Jarvis OBE (born
4 August 1941 in
Cheltenham
, Gloucestershire
) is an English
actor.
Early life
He is the
son of Denys Harry Jarvis and Margot Lillian Scottney, and grew up
in South
Norwood
. He attended the independent Whitgift School
in Croydon.
Acting
Jarvis trained at
RADA, where he won the
Vanbrugh Award and the Silver Medal.
He has acted in many
stage productions in London
and abroad,
most recently starring alongside Diana
Rigg and Natascha McElhone in
Joanna Murray-Smith's
Honour at London's Wyndham's Theatre
until May 2006.
He read Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities for the Chivers Audio
Books production on cassette, later released on CD by Barnes and
Noble Audio Classics.
Radio work
Jarvis has had a long association with the
BBC,
particularly
BBC Radio 4. In the 1980s
Michael Frayn's columns for the
Guardian and the
Observer, described by some as
models of the comic essay, were adapted and performed in many
voices for BBC Radio 4 by Jarvis. He performs regularly in radio
dramas and readings, both comic and serious. In David Mamet's
Mind Your Pantheon he played the actor Strabo. He is
probably best known for his long series of readings of
Richmal Crompton's
Just William stories, which show his
characteristic and flexible reading voices. He has also narrated
the
Billy Bunter series, by
Frank Richards. As a result of this extensive
work Jarvis is satirised by the radio show
Dead Ringers by
Mark Perry, highlighting his
seeming
ubiquity on Radio 4 programmes
and as a guest in Dictionary Corner on
Countdown.
In America, Jarvis and his wife
Rosalind
Ayres perform frequently in
audio
drama with the L.A. Theater Works and
Hollywood Theater of the
Ear.
Television work
Jarvis's first television appearance was in 1965 in the
BBC science fiction
series
Doctor Who, playing a
giant butterfly in "
The Web Planet".
He became a familiar face on
television
when he played Jon in the
BBC's landmark 1967
adaptation of
The Forsyte
Saga, the lead in a BBC serialisation of
Nicholas
Nickleby (1968), Uriah Heep in the 1974 BBC version of
David
Copperfield and the male lead in the
sitcom Rings On
Their Fingers (1978-80) with
Diane
Keen. He also appeared in the 2002 BBC children's miniseries
Bootleg.
Jarvis has made several guest appearances in
Doctor Who, including the serial "
Vengeance on Varos" in 1985 as the
beleaguered governor of the planet Varos. He has also appeared in
"
Jubilee", a
Doctor
Who spin off audio drama by
Big Finish Productions alongside his
wife.
His appearances on American television include such series as
Murder, She Wrote,
Walker, Texas Ranger,
and, more recently,
Stargate
Atlantis and
Numb3rs.
Jarvis has also voiced various characters in animated series such
as
Billy and Mandy (where
he voiced Nergal) and
The Life and Times of Juniper
Lee. An interesting note is that in the former's case, he
inherits the role of the character Nergal from his Titanic co-star
David Warner. In 2000 he voiced "John Dread" in the TV series
Max Steel.
Martin appeared in ITV 1's
The Bill in July
2008.
Miscellaneous
Jarvis was the subject of BBC television's
This Is Your Life in
1999.
He has also published a book of memoirs titled
Acting
Strangely: A Funny Kind of Life (ISBN 0413728501 hardback,
ISBN 0413745503 paperback).
Together with his wife, Jarvis runs the radio production company
"Jarvis & Ayres Productions", frequently used by
Radio 4.
Jarvis has also appeared in an episode of Colin Dexter's adapted
for TV series
Inspector Morse.
In 2007, Jarvis has voiced in video gaming for the first time and
plays the role of The Chronicler in the
Spyro the Dragon video game
series.
Personal life
He married
Rosalind Ayres on 23 November 1974 in Ealing
and has two
sons by a previous marriage. He met Ayres when playing in
Hamlet together, where she played
Ophelia. He was awarded the
OBE in
2000.
He
has houses in London and Los Angeles
.
Filmography
External links
References
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