Christopher Blake
Encyclopedia
Christopher Blake was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and screenwriter who is best remembered for starring in the British sitcom
British sitcom
A British sitcom tends, as it does in most other countries, to be based on a family, workplace or other institution, where the same group of contrasting characters is brought together in each episode. Unlike American sitcoms, where twenty or more episodes in a season is the norm, British sitcoms...

 That's My Boy alongside Mollie Sugden
Mollie Sugden
Isobel Mary 'Mollie' Sugden was an English comedy actress best known for portraying the saleswoman Mrs. Slocombe in the British sitcom Are You Being Served? from 1972 to 1985. She later reprised this role in Grace & Favour, which ran from 1992 to 1993...

.

Early life

He was born Peter Ronald Gray on 23 August 1949 in Chingford
Chingford
Chingford is a district of north east London, bordering on Enfield and Edmonton to the west, Woodford to the east, Walthamstow and Stratford to the south and Essex to the north. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross and forms part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. His father, Charles (known as Harry), was a plasterer and his mother, Elizabeth, a dressmaker and housewife. They went on to have two more sons. The family emigrated to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in the late 1950s but returned in 1966 and he attended the Fitzherbert Secondary Modern School, Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

. He then trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...

 and changed his name to Christopher Blake, because there was another Peter Gray registered with the actors' union, Equity. He chose the surname Blake from the telephone directory.

Career

Blake first came to the attention of television audiences in 1972 when he was cast as Gilbert Blythe in the 1972 BBC mini-series of Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...

. He would later reprise the role in 1975 when Anne of Avonlea
Anne of Avonlea
-Plot introduction:Following Anne of Green Gables , the book covers the second chapter in the life of Anne Shirley. This book follows Anne from the age of 16 to 18, during the two years that she teaches at Avonlea school. It includes many of the characters from Anne of Green Gables, as well as new...

was made. Blake later had roles in the LWT serial Love for Lydia
Love for Lydia
Love for Lydia is a semi-autobiographical novel written by British author H. E. Bates, first published in 1952.-Plot:Lydia Aspen, a seemingly shy girl from a wealthy but isolated background, is encouraged by her aunts, her new carers, to discover the delights of growing up...

(1977), and then in the ITV sitcom Mixed Blessings (1978) for which he also sang the theme tune. Although Blake remained busy as an actor in varied stage and television roles, his next truly successful venture was the ITV sitcom That's My Boy which ran from 1981-86. In this, Blake played Robert Price, a middle-class doctor who hires a live-in housekeeper who turns out to be his biological mother, Ida Willis (Sugden). After That's My Boy, Blake continued in character parts in episodic television, but never managed to land the more prominent roles that he had enjoyed earlier in his career. In 2000, he guest-starred in the Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

audio adventure The Mutant Phase
The Mutant Phase
The Mutant Phase is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who....

which featured the Daleks.

In later years Christopher Blake turned to screenwriting, writing several episodes of Channel 5's short-lived soap, Family Affairs. He wrote two episodes (Dancing in the Dark and Endangered Species) of the ITV crime serial Touch of Frost with his writing partner Tony Charles.

Personal life

He was married twice and had three children from his first marriage; two daughters and a son. A talented all-round cricketer since his youth in Australia, he played the game throughout his life, including for The Lord's Taverners and William Franklyn
William Franklyn
William Leo Franklyn was a British actor, perhaps best known for voicing the "Schhh... You Know Who" adverts for Schweppes from 1965 to 1973...

's team, the Sargentmen, which raised money for the Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

 Cancer Fund for Children. One of his other great passions was supporting Arsenal F.C.
Arsenal F.C.
Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...

 and he dropped references to Arsenal into scripts whenever the opportunity arose.

Illness and death

In early 2004 Christopher Blake was diagnosed with an aggressive and rare form of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
The non-Hodgkin lymphomas are a diverse group of blood cancers that include any kind of lymphoma except Hodgkin's lymphomas. Types of NHL vary significantly in their severity, from indolent to very aggressive....

 and received treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

. He died on 11 December 2004 in London, England, aged 55. He is buried at the East London Cemetery
East London Cemetery
The East London Cemetery and Crematorium are located in Plaistow in the London Borough of Newham. It is owned and operated by the East London Cemetery Company.-History:...

 and Crematorium.

Television Credits

  • Casualty (TV series)
    Casualty (TV series)
    Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

    .... Alan / ... (2 episodes, 1990–2001)
  • Doctors (BBC soap opera)
    Doctors (BBC Soap Opera)
    Doctors is a British daytime television soap opera, set in the fictional Midland town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the City of Birmingham. It was created by Chris Murray; Mal Young drove its development, and Carson Black was the original producer. The first episode was broadcast on...

    .... Dan Armstrong (1 episode, 2001)
  • Birds of a Feather
    Birds of a Feather
    Birds of a Feather was a British sitcom that was broadcast on BBC1 from 1989 until 1998. Starring Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph, it was created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, who also wrote some of the episodes along with many other writers.The first episode sees sisters...

    .... David Kane (1 episode, 1997)
  • Down to Earth (TV series)
    Down to Earth (TV series)
    Down to Earth was an American fantasy situation comedy series that ran on Superstation TBS from 1984 to 1987. It was produced by Procter & Gamble Productions and was the superstation's first original series.-Premise:...

    (1995) TV Series .... Chris Fairfax (unknown episodes)
  • To Be the Best (1992) (TV) .... Sandy
  • So Haunt Me
    So Haunt Me
    So Haunt Me is a British television sitcom about a family that moves into a home occupied by the ghost of its previous resident, a middle-aged Jewish mother. The show was produced by Cinema Verity for the BBC and originally aired from 1992 to 1994....

    .... Chris Longford (1 episode, 1992)
  • Brookside
    Brookside
    Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...

    (1982) TV Series .... Tim Derby (unknown episodes, 1991)
  • Young Charlie Chaplin .... Asylum Doctor (2 episodes, 1989)
  • That's My Boy .... Dr. Robert 'Shane' Price (37 episodes, 1981–1986)
  • Love's Labour's Lost (1985 film) (TV) .... Longaville
  • Alexa (1982 mini series) TV Series .... Paul
  • Tales of the Unexpected (TV series)
    Tales of the Unexpected (TV series)
    Tales of the Unexpected is a British television series originally aired between 1979 and 1988, made by Anglia Television for ITV. Filming began in 1978.The series was an anthology of different tales...

    .... Israeli Officer (1 episode, 1981)
  • The Mill on the Floss (1978 film) (mini) TV Series .... Tom Tulliver
  • The Lost Boys (docudrama)
    The Lost Boys (docudrama)
    The Lost Boys is an award-winning 1978 docudrama mini-series produced by the BBC, written by Andrew Birkin, and directed by Rodney Bennett. It is about the relationship between Peter Pan creator J. M...

    (1978) (mini) TV Series .... George
  • Mixed Blessings
    Mixed Blessings (TV series)
    Mixed Blessings was a British sitcom that was made by LWT for and broadcast on the ITV network between 1978 and 1980, It was created by comedy-writer Sid Green and starred Actor Christopher Blake and Actress Muriel Odunton.- Plot :...

    (1978) TV Series .... Thomas Simpson
  • A Ghost Story For Christmas: Stigma (1977) (TV) .... Richard
  • Love for Lydia (1977 TV mini-series) .... Richardson
  • Anne of Avonlea (1975 film) (mini) TV Series .... Gilbert Blythe
  • Warship (TV series)
    Warship (TV series)
    Warship was a popular British television drama series produced by the BBC between 1973 and 1977. It was also dubbed into Dutch and broadcast in the Netherlands as Alle hens...

    .... Sg. Lt. Newcombe (1 episode, 1974)
  • Death or Glory Boy (1974) (TV) .... David Parker
  • Anne of Green Gables (1972 film)
    Anne of Green Gables (1972 film)
    Anne of Green Gables is a made-for-television British mini-series directed by Joan Craft based upon the novel, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.-Cast:* Kim Braden - Anne Shirley* Christopher Blake - Gilbert Blythe...

    (mini) TV Series .... Gilbert Blythe

Film Credits

  • Child 2 Man (2000) .... Dabdu's Sidekick
  • La Passione
    La Passione
    La Passione is a 1996 album by Chris Rea, and the soundtrack for the movie with the same title, also written by Rea. Shirley Bassey provides vocals on two tracks.-Track listing:All songs by Chris Rea.# "La Passione" - 4:55...

    (1996) .... John MacIlroy
  • Aces High
    Aces High (film)
    Aces High is a 1976 British war film directed by Jack Gold and starring Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer and Simon Ward. The screenplay was written by Howard Barker. As acknowledged in the opening credits, the film is based on the 1930s play Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff and the memoir...

    (1976) .... Lieutenant Roberts
  • Hennessy
    Hennessy (film)
    Hennessy is a 1975 British thriller film directed by Don Sharp and starring Rod Steiger, Trevor Howard, Lee Remick, Richard Johnson, Peter Egan, Stanley Lebor and Patrick Stewart. After the death of his family during a riot in Belfast, Niall Hennessy comes up with a plan to blow up the British...

    (1975) .... Young Soldier
  • Because of the Cats
    Because of the Cats
    Because of the Cats is a 1973 Dutch-Belgian drama film directed by Fons Rademakers and starring Bryan Marshall, Alexandra Stewart and Sebastian Graham Jones. In Amsterdam Inspector Van der Valk is on the trail of a group of wealthy young men who go round attacking woman for entertainment. Its Dutch...

    (1973) .... Frank Kieft
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