Barry Foster (actor)
| Barry Foster | |
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Barry Foster (1972)
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| Born |
John Barry Foster 21 August 1927 Beeston, Nottinghamshire, England |
| Died | 11 February 2002 (aged 74) Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, Surrey, England |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1954–2000 |
| Spouse(s) | Judith Shergold (m. 1955; his death 2002) |
| Children | 3; including Joanna Foster |
Barry Foster (21 August 1927 – 11 February 2002) was an English actor who is perhaps best known for playing the title role in Van der Valk, which ran for five series between 1972 and 1992, and as serial killer Bob Rusk in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Frenzy.
He was born John Barry Foster in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, the son of a toolsetter. His family moved to Hayes, Hillingdon (then in Middlesex) when he was a few months old. He attended Southall County Grammar School. After leaving school, Foster worked as a plastics organic chemist at the local EMI Central Research Laboratories, while unsuccessfully submitting ideas to advertising agencies.
Foster trained as an actor for two years at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London - where he earned the affectionate soubriquet 'Fozza' (which would stay with him throughout his life) - arriving there aged 20. It was here he became friends with an actor called David Baron, better known as playwright Harold Pinter. Foster would much later appear on stage in three of Pinter's plays, The Basement and The Tea Party and A Slight Ache in 1987.
Foster's professional stage debut came in 1952 as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice in County Cork. Then in 1955 he made his London stage debut as the Electrician in The Night of the Ball at the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre). His first film role was in the war film The Battle of the River Plate (1956), as part of the crew of HMS Exeter, in which he played Able Seaman Roper. Over the next decade and a half, he performed in such films as Joseph Losey's King and Country (1964), The Family Way (1966), Robbery (1967), Inspector Clouseau (1968), Battle of Britain (1969), and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970). He had a regular role in the TV series The Troubleshooters (1965).
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