Richard Bebb

Richard Bebb (12 January 1927 – 12 April 2006) was an English actor of stage, screen and radio. Born Richard Bebb Williams in London, he changed his name to his mother's surname, Bebb, when he took up acting as there was already a British actor called Richard Williams. Bebb's father Herbert Edward Williams was a physician whose practice was run from part of St Mary's Lodge, the family's impressive home in Stoke Newington. Bebb was educated at Highgate School in North London, and attended Trinity College, Cambridge from 1944–1947. In 1952, he married actress Gwen Watford (1927–1994), who predeceased him. Bebb was a prolific performer in theatre, television and radio, probably most famously as "Second Voice" in the original 1954 BBC Radio broadcast of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, opposite Richard Burton's "First Voice". On television, he appeared in early televised Shakespeare to Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, Softly, Softly (TV series), and a long running role in the soap-opera serial Compact. Throughout the 1990s he was frequently in the Poirot series. He also appeared in several films, such as Pope Joan (1972) and King Ralph (1991).