Ronald Fraser (11 April 1930 – 13 March 1997) was a British character actor, who appeared in numerous British plays, films and television shows from the 1950s to the 1990s.
An unusual appearance and unique delivery made him a natural comedic actor. Fraser was a familiar figure in West End clubs during the Sixties, and despite a long-standing reputation as one of the hardest drinking of British actors he was still working in his last years. He was perhaps best known as Basil "Badger" Allenby-Johnson in the 1970s television series The Misfit.
Background
Ronald Fraser was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the son of an interior decorator and builder from Scotland. He attended Ashton Grammar School. He was educated in Scotland and did national service as a lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders.
While serving in Benghazi in North Africa, he appeared in the comic play French Without Tears by Terence Rattigan. He trained as an actor at RADA until 1953 and soon appeared at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre. He joined the Old Vic repertory company in 1954, making his first London appearance in The Good Sailor, a stage adaptation of Herman Melville's novel, Billy Budd.
In the West End, he appeared in The Long and the Short and the Tall, The Ginger Man, The Singular Man, Androcles and the Lion, The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet, Purple Dust by Seán O'Casey, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joseph Papp's production of The Pirates of Penzance and High Society. He also played Falstaff in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. His only Broadway show was the flop La Grosse Valise by Robert Dhéry, Gérard Calvi and Harold Rome.
He appeared in numerous television roles from 1954, and in nearly 50 films from 1957, mostly in comedies. In 1996 Fraser voiced the chief judge in The Willows in Winter.
Selected filmography
Film credits
Black Ice (1957) – Tom
Bobbikins (1959) – Sailor Joe (uncredited) There Was a Crooked Man (1960) – Gen. Cummins The Sundowners (1960) – Ocker The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961) – L / Cpl. Macleish Don't Bother to Knock (1961) – Fred The Best of Enemies (1961) – Perfect Raising the Wind (1961) The Hellions (1961) – Frank The Pot Carriers (1962) – Red Band The Girl on the Boat (1962) – Colonel (uncredited) In Search of the Castaways (1962) – Guard at Dockyard Gate Private Potter (1962) – Doctor The Punch and Judy Man (1963) – Mayor Palmer The V.I.P.s (1963) – Joslin Girl in the Headlines (1963) – Sgt. Saunders The Beauty Jungle (1964) – Walter Carey Victim Five (1964) – Inspector Lean Crooks in Cloisters (1964) – Walt The Counterfeit Constable (1964) – Sergent Timothy Reagan Daylight Robbery (1964) Flight of the Phoenix (1965) – Sergeant Watson The Whisperers (1967) – Charlie Ross Fathom (1967) – Colonel Campbell Sebastian (1968) – Toby The Killing of Sister George (1968) – Leo Lockhart Sinful Davey (1969) – MacNab The Bed Sitting Room (1969) – The Army Too Late the Hero (1970) – Pvt. Campbell The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Tom Hutchinson The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971) – George (segment "Wrath") Ooh... You Are Awful (1972) – Reggie Campbell Peek Rentadick (1972) – Major Upton Swallows and Amazons (1974) – Uncle Jim Percy's Progress (1974) – Bleeker Paper Tiger (1975) – Sergeant Forster Hardcore (1977) – Marty Come Play With Me (1977) – Slasher The Wild Geese (1978) – Jock McTaggart Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) – Dr. Longet Tangiers (1985) – Jenkins Absolute Beginners (1986) – Amberley Drove Scandal (1989) – Justice Marshall Let Him Have It (1991) – Niven's Judge The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1993) – Dean