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Sandy-haired Welsh actor who served in the RAF during World War II and hit pay dirt and stardom with his first two British films, The Blue Lagoon (1949) with Jean Simmons, and A Run for Your Money (1949) with Sir Alec Guinness, maintaining his career with lesser distinction in bawdy comedies and melodramas. His characters were authority figures, often military in war movies like Battle Hell (1957), The Longest Day (1962) and Where Eagles Dare (1968) (the latter with Richard Burton).- The younger brother of matinee idol Donald Houston attended elementary school in Wales but was largely self-educated with a love of sports and a strong leaning towards the arts and humanities. Glyn's working life began on his grandmother's milk round in Tonypandy. After leaving the Rhondda Valley he held down a variety of short-lived jobs and war-time appointments: with the Bristol Aeroplane Company, as a gunner with the Fleet Air Arm, a labourer on the docks at Cardiff and with the Military Police. Eventually posted to Singapore, Glyn served with the Royal Signals Regiment where his comedic potential was first recognised. Having joined the Entertainments National Service Association (and being promoted to Acting Sergeant) he put together a variety show for serving troops which toured India.
Following demobilisation at war's end, brother Donald helped him secure a position as assistant stage manager with the Guildford Repertory Theatre. On-the-job training in touring plays was to provide the foundation for a screen career which began when the director Basil Dearden created a part specifically for him in the Ealing production of The Blue Lamp (1950). Over the next six years, Glyn would appear regularly in films playing assorted working class types, sailors and soldiers (frequently Cockneys) in dramas with a crime, naval or military theme. These included classic productions like The Clouded Yellow (1950), The Cruel Sea (1953), Turn the Key Softly (1953) (famously, as Joan Collins's first onscreen lover) and The One That Got Away (1957). Many were small parts or even cameos, but occasional leads eventually followed. In Solo for Sparrow (1962), Glyn enjoyed a rare starring turn as a Scotland Yard Inspector turned private eye who brings down a gang of villains (one of them a young Michael Caine). He had a further leading role as yet another policeman in Emergency (1962), surfaced in a couple of Hammer horrors and played the comic foil in four Norman Wisdom farces, beginning with A Stitch in Time (1963). From 1958 Glyn also appeared in a staple of TV shows, live broadcasts, anthologies, soap operas and classic adaptations (notably, Lord Peter Wimsey's impeccable manservant Mervyn Bunter in Clouds of Witness (1972)) and Rosa Bud's guardian Grewgious in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1993) .
His most consistent stock-in-trade characters continued to be serious professionals, generally in uniformed garb as officers (Colonel Wolsey in Doctor Who (1963) "The Awakening"), or, most frequently, police inspectors and superintendents (Outbreak of Murder (1962), Gideon C.I.D. (1964), Z Cars (1962), Softly Softly (1966)). Though he maintained a prolific career on stage in plays by Chekov, Shaw, Miller and others, his one self-confessed regret was not having become a leading light on the Shakespearean stage. Glyn Houston became recipient of a Bafta Cymru special award in 2008 for outstanding contribution to film and television. His autobiography, "Glyn Houston, A Black and White Actor", appeared the following year. - Lynette Davies was born on 18 October 1948 in Tonypandy, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for Miracles Take Longer (1983), Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and The Watch House (1988). She died in December 1993 in Lavernock Point, Wales, UK.
- Sophie Evans grew up in Tonypandy in the Rhondda Valleys of Wales with younger sister Beth and their parents, Michelle and David. Sophie appeared on BBC-1's Over the Rainbow (2010), Andrew Lloyd Webber's search for a Dorothy; she placed runner-up. After that she attended Arts Educational Schools Chiswick, studying musical theatre. She then went on to become Alternate Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", performing one show a week at the London Palladium. After a year as alternate, Sophie took on the role full-time performing eight shows a week. She has sung at various venues across the UK, including The Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Opera House (for the Olivier Awards), The Wales Millennium Centre, The Millennium Stadium, Liberty Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium, The Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, and Headingley Stadium.
She has been featured in numerous television program, including a week-long stint on S4C's cariad@iaith/love4language, where she learned Welsh with other Welsh personalities. ITV also followed her for a year during the "Wizard of Oz" run for a documentary called "Dare to Dream". Sophie appears as part of The Marmalade Sandwich in Simon Pegg and Nick Frost' The World's End (2013). She has also had her own TV Christmas Show on BBC One Wales, where she performed with the BBC National Orchestra and special guests Michael Ball and Only Boys Aloud. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Gwen Jones was born in 1920 in Tonypandy, Glamorgan, Wales, UK. She is an actress, known for The Adventures of Annabel (1955), Eddie Carroll and His Orchestra (1939) and A Flea Off Pepe (1956).- Winifred Braemar was born on 13 August 1896 in Tonypandy, Glamorgan, Wales, UK. She was an actress, known for For the Love of Ada (1972), Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968) and Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977). She died on 14 March 1979 in Chichester, Sussex, England, UK.