- Born
- Birth nameJames Christopher Bolam
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- James Christopher Bolam was born in the Sunderland Maternity Home on 16th June 1935 to Marion and Robert Bolam. Later after completing his education at Bede Grammar School he went to drama school then into repertory in Dundee with Sir Ralph Richardson before moving to London. Married to actress Susan Jameson with daughter Lucy, born in 1976 they eventually moved from Fulham to near Horsham in Sussex. He now owns two race horses, 'King Credo', which by 1993 had won three top races including the Tote Gold Trophy at Newbury which repaid his purchase and training costs and 'Unique New Yorker'- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpouseSusan Jameson(? - present) (1 child)
- While being married to Susan Jameson in real life in the television series 'New Tricks', in which they both appeared, she played the wife of Brian Lane played by Alun Armstrong.
- He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours list for his services to Drama.
- Was roommates with Marc Bolan in the '60s.
- In the episode "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", several references are made to Terry (James Bolam) resembling "Andy Capp" (a popular newspaper comic strip about a gambling, drinking layabout and his long suffering wife). 15 years later, Bolam would play Andy Capp in a short-lived ITV sit-com.
- According to Monica Dickens' autobiography "An Open Book", James Bolam, who was a keen horseman, brought her novel "Cobbler's Dream" to the attention of Yorkshire Television, leading to the TV series Follyfoot (1971).
- The Likely Lads has lasted because the characters struck reality. People could identify with them. Mothers could identify with sons, and sons could identify with themselves. The series works so well because there's an underlying truth about it all. That's why classics are classics. When you watch Laurel and Hardy, there's a fundamental truth about them, a believability which I never find with Chaplin. In the same way, you can believe in Bob and Terry.
- One should be judged not by what one is, but by what one does. Also, the media encourage the notion that you are like your parts. Does that mean that you can't play Macbeth unless you go out and murder someone, or that you can only play Hamlet if you don't like your mother? It's just acting.
- I'm having some new track rods fitted on my car. I don't want to know anything about the man who's doing it. Why should he want to know about me?
- In this business, you do one job and then move on. You wipe everything else out - you have to. You can't live in the past.
- [on Rodney Bewes] There was no fall-out at all, as far as I was concerned. We worked together very happily and very well, enjoyed each other's company and when we finished, we finished. This is what happens in acting. You work with people, you get to know them, you like them, we have a great time and the job finishes and you go off and it all starts again with other people and you can't keep contact with everybody that you know. I think that Rodney wanted to do some more Likely Lads and I never did, I felt that what we had done was to me so perfect and so right that to try and bring it back ... After we finished it the writers went on to do Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and then they went off to America and the success of that series lay in the strength of those scripts. There was some suggestion that we had other writers come in and I just thought 'well, I don't think it will work' and so I didn't want to do it, I was busy doing other things. I just remember him with great warmth and with great happiness and the time we had when we actually did the shows, that's the greatest memory of all. It's been quite a depressing week for me because another actor that I worked with a lot, Keith Barron, died as well recently and I've been thinking 'Oh god, they're all going' and it is a bit depressing. All one thinks at a time like this is their families and my thoughts are with them and my sympathies and I just wish them well.
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