Julian Holloway obituary

The Guardian

19-02-2025

Julian Holloway, who has died aged 80, was a prolific television actor and voice artist, and had a stage career that took him to Broadway, but he was best known for appearing in eight Carry On movies.
In later years he freely disowned them. 'I am not remotely proud of my involvement in the films,' he said in a 2018 interview with Callum J Phoenix for the Retroboy website, adding that Kenneth Williams – who appeared in more of the productions, known for their saucy seaside postcard humour, than any other actor – once advised him: 'Don't let the stigma of the Carry Ons attach itself to you.'
Nevertheless, Holloway – son of Stanley Holloway, the actor and singer known for his comic monologues and songs – said that during his 10 years in the films he enjoyed his third venture, Carry On Up the Khyber (1968), the most.
Holloway played the long-suffering Major Shorthouse of the 3rd Foot and Mouth Regiment, who reports directly to Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond (Sid James), the British governor in the north-west province of India. He considered the historical Carry Ons, complete with period costume, to be the best in the series.
It was downhill from there, with Holloway's roles including the lecherous coach driver in Carry On Camping (1969), taking girls from Chayste Place finishing school to Devon and, while at a hostel there, tripping over, crashing into Barbara Windsor and accidentally ripping off her nightdress.
Cast in the role after Jim Dale was unavailable, Holloway was set to have a screen romance with one of the girls, played by Trisha Noble, but most of the scenes – including one of him rescuing her from a goat in a shower – ended up on the cutting-room floor.
In a similar vein was Carry On Loving (1970), in which Holloway was a highly strung photographer on a quest to find a well-endowed model. His other Carry On parts were as a railway ticket collector in Follow That Camel (1967); Simmons, in charge of X-rays, in Doctor (1967); Sir Thomas, one of Henry VIII's riding pals, in Henry (1971); Roger, a friend of Lewis Boggs (Richard O'Callaghan), in At Your Convenience (1971); and Major Butcher, a medical officer, in England (1976).
He also appeared in the 1973 TV special Carry On Christmas, but eventually turned down the offer of another movie. 'My agent got a message from the casting director to say that if I didn't do the film I would never work with Peter Rogers [the director] again!' recalled Holloway. 'I said, 'OK, fine by me.''
In between the Carry On films – which were known for the derisory fees paid to actors, and for which he was never paid more than £300 – Holloway was becoming one of the busiest character actors on television, in both comedies and dramas.
His stage career was progressing, too. He took over from Michael Gambon as Tom in Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy The Norman Conquests in the West End (Globe and Apollo theatres, 1975-76).
Later, in a well-received revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway starring Richard Chamberlain as Higgins (Virginia theatre, 1993-94), Holloway played Alfred P Doolittle, recreating the role taken by his father in the original 1950s New York and London productions, as well as the 1964 film version. 'The admirably boisterous Julian Holloway, as Eliza's dustman father, is understandably very like his own illustrious father, Stanley,' wrote Clive Barnes in the Stage.
The only son of Stanley Holloway's second marriage, to Violet Lane, an actor and former chorus dancer, Julian was born in Watlington, Oxfordshire, and brought up in Penn, Buckinghamshire. After leaving Harrow school, he trained at Rada in London. While still studying, he was an extra in 1961 in the film Dentist on the Job and an episode of The Avengers, and went to the US to appear in the sitcom Our Man Higgins (1962-63) as Quentin, nephew of the prim English butler played by his father in the starring role.
On graduating from Rada in 1963, he joined Beryl Reid and others in the revue All Square, which included a West End run at the Vaudeville theatre. Three years later, he starred as Jimmy, alongside Victor Henry as Ian, in Christopher Hampton's first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, performed by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, then the Comedy Theatre.
In the following decade, Holloway starred in a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace as Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic dealing with a murderous family and the police (Whitehall and Westminster theatres, 1977).
His screen career was given an early boost when the director Richard Lester cast him in small roles in the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night (1964) and The Knack… and How to Get It (1965), although he struggled for a while to get beyond bit parts on the big screen.
Television proved more fruitful. He was Corky, hapless friend of the title character created by PG Wodehouse (played by Anton Rodgers), in Ukridge (1968); Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest (1972); a mobster in The Sweeney (1975); Jack Favell, the heroine's cousin and lover, in Rebecca (1979); the English politician Harry Cust in Nancy Astor (1982); and Paterson in the Doctor Who adventure Survival (1989). He voiced the title character in the British cartoon Captain Z and the Zee Zone (1991-92).
After providing various voices for the American animated series James Bond Jr (1991), Holloway settled in Los Angeles in 1992. Eventually, he divided his time between California and Britain, left stage acting behind and became a successful voice artist on US television series such as Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future (2002, after a 2001 TV movie), Father of the Pride (2004-05) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2010-2020).
Back in Britain, Holloway played Uncle George in the TV series My Uncle Silas (2001-03).
Both his marriages, to the actors Zena Walker (1971) and Debbie Wheeler (1991), ended in divorce. He is survived by his daughter, the author and former model Sophie Dahl, from a brief relationship in the mid-1970s with the writer and actor Tessa Dahl.
Julian Robert Stanley Holloway, actor, born 24 June 1944; died 16 February 2025