Tom Adams

Tom Adams, born March 9 1938, died December 11 2014

How the hell does it make sense that every non-entity reality star contributing nothing to life gets internet and coverage on TV and media if they snag a figernail yet some of the UKs best actors and comedians get hardly any press...even when they die?

Here is The Telegraph obituary along with additional photos and info.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11294797/Tom-Adams-obituary.html

For me, Tom Adams will always be associated with two characters -as secret agent Charles Vine in three films and as Chief Inspector Nick Lewis in The Enigma Files (1980).  If you are a bit older you might recall him in the 1961(?) TV series Ghost Squad or G.S. 5.

He was also a doctor in the 1970s ITV series General Hospital that scared the hell out of people with its rabies victim episode!

I believe, as Vine, he told people he travelled a lot because he was a "vacuum cleaner salesman" and that was probably a joke based on the Alec Guinness film Our Man In Havana (1960).  The late Richard Johnson, who died in June of this year with, again, no great fuss (!), later carried on the success in two films as Bulldog Drummond.  But Vine...Charles Vine....

Tom Adams was an actor who starred in The Great Escape and whose 'chocolatey’ tones led to him being the voice of E4

Tom Adams, who has died aged 76, was a familiar face for several decades as a supporting actor and occasional leading man; his vocal tones, once described as “rich and chocolatey”, meant that he was in demand as a voice-over artist.

He enjoyed success early on with his role in The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges, as the RAF officer Dai Nimmo, one of the dirt-carrying escape committee with special responsibility for diversions. However, despite Adams’s tall, square-shouldered frame, jet-black hair and unwavering eyes, attempts to turn him into a film star and capitalise on his passing resemblance to Sean Connery met with limited success.

In middle age he enjoyed a long run as a suited, gesticulating, silver-haired spokesman in television commercials for Allied Carpets and later DFS. The rushed pace of his delivery in these, and the occasional wry look to camera, hinted at self-mockery, something he took further in a 2011 advertisement for Aero Biscuits, declaring them to be “incredi-bubble” while clad in a pseudo-Edwardian outfit. Latterly he was the voice of E4, the youth-orientated sister channel to Channel 4.
 
Adams as Charles Vine

Tom Adams was born in London on March 9 1938. Forgoing any acting training, he nevertheless made his West End debut, supporting Anton Walbrook and Peter Sallis, in Masterpiece (Royalty, 1961). He was then one of the take-over cast in the RSC’s production of As You Like It (Aldwych, 1962), starring Vanessa Redgrave. During this period he also taught English and drama at the Cardinal Griffin Secondary Modern School in Poplar.

Interviewed in The Telegraph for the 50th anniversary of The Great Escape, Adams reflected that his salary from the film had allowed him to buy his first car . Subsequently Adams was cast as Charles Vine, a philandering secret agent, in Licensed To Kill (1965), a low-budget James Bond pastiche . The film includes a scene where one character takes his shoes off in order to move silently, and can be seen to have holes in his socks. Adams returned for a sequel, Where the Bullets Fly (1966). The third instalment, made in Spain in 1967 as Somebody’s Stolen our Russian Spy, would not be not released in Britain for another nine years.

Adams had recurring parts in two BBC television series of the 1970s: as Major Sullivan in Spy Trap (1973-75), and in The Enigma Files (1980), as DCI Nick Lewis . His one-off guest appearances, in contrast, tended to find him on the wrong side of the law. A role as a convict in a BBC play, Question Of Guilt (1963), led to a part as an East End gangster in The Frighteners (1965), written by Daniel Farson. He played an elegant kidnapper in episodes of The Avengers (1969) and The Persuaders! (1971). As one of the Villains (LWT, 1972) he used a thermal lance to rob a safe and accidentally set the money on fire.
Adams continued to work in the legitimate theatre, appearing in John Osborne’s Time Present (1968) at the Royal Court; as Feste in Twelfth Night at the Ludlow Festival (1975), and as Northumberland, Glendower and Douglas in Henry IV, Part 1 (Shaw, 1977) .

In the second half of that decade, he had a regular berth (1975-78) in the daytime soap opera General Hospital, as Dr Guy Adams, having appeared in its predecessor, Emergency – Ward 10, in 1964. In the closing years of The Onedin Line (1977-1980) he was James Onedin’s rival Sir Daniel Fogarty. Focus North (Channel 4, 1999-2000) was a parody of current affairs programmes with Adams as a Robert Kilroy-Silk-type.

^{As Dr Guy Adams in General Hospital (ITV/REX)}
 
Adams’s involvement with advertising had begun in the 1970s with print ads for British Wool. His most recent appearance in a television commercial was for Stannah Stairlifts in 2011 .

Tom Adams enjoyed playing golf and riding. He participated in fundraising events for the children’s charity Sparks and the Spina Bifida Association.
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Tom Adams played Detective Chief Inspector Nick Lewis in The Enigma Files which I thought was shown on BBC 1 TV but am told it was BBC 2 TV..really?  Anyway, the series lasted 15 episodes in 1980s and was way ahead of its time.  The character of Lewis was a "Chief Inspector" so when he over-stepped the line, according to his superiors, he was pushed into a dead end job, expected to get frustrated and resign.  Oh no.

What Lewis did was go through the unsolved crimes files and re-investigate and solve those crimes. So The Enigma Files were about twenty years ahead of everyone else.  And guess what? This ground breaking series has never been released by the BBC on video or dvd.

So, it's sad to hear of his death but Tom Adams will live on!


There is an obituary for actor Richard Johnson here http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-richard-johnson-actor-1-3795273
Belated Tempus fugit