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Norman Beaton
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Norman Lugard Beaton (31 October 1934 – 13 December 1994) was a Guyanese actor. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana, to William Beaton, a civil servant, and Ada. Beaton attended Queen's College in Guyana until he was expelled for truancy and bad grades. He was given a second chance at the Government Teachers' Training College and graduated with distinction. Beaton taught and played with the calypso band The Four Bees before leaving Guyana for London in 1960.
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Encyclopedia
Norman Lugard Beaton (31 October 1934 – 13 December 1994) was a Guyanese actor. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana, to William Beaton, a civil servant, and Ada. Beaton attended Queen's College in Guyana until he was expelled for truancy and bad grades. He was given a second chance at the Government Teachers' Training College and graduated with distinction. Beaton taught and played with the calypso band The Four Bees before leaving Guyana for London in 1960.
Early career
Beaton obtained a post in the shipping department of a bookshop until his wife and children arrived in London. He then became a teacher in Liverpool, becoming the first black teacher to be employed by the Liverpool Education Authority. Beaton became increasingly unhappy with his work as a teacher and began writing plays, his first play being the musical Jack of Spades, which was about the doomed relationship between a black man and a white woman, quite controversial at that time. The moderate success of this play gave Beaton enough confidence to give up teaching and to concentrate on the theatre. He moved first to Bristol and then to Sussex where he played the leading role in a musical he had written, Sit Down, Banna at the Connaught Theatre. This was the beginning of his acting career.
Success
In the early 1970s, Beaton began to perform in plays in London's West End. In 1970 he played the role of Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest, which he described in his autobiography as "the most important role of my acting career." In 1975, he helped to establish the Black Theatre of Brixton. In 1976, Beaton broke into television in the series The Fosters, which also starred a young Lenny Henry, and the following year played the lead role in a low-budget independent film about a West Indian community in London, Black Joy; he also appeared in the BBC series Empire Road. However, it was his six year run (starting in 1988) in Channel Four's Desmond's, ( written by Trix Worrell ) as the title character, that would become his best known role. For 'Desmond's' Beaton received the Royal Television Society Best Comedy Performer Award. He played the lead role of Willie Boy in the 1987 comedy Playing Away about a West Indian cricket team invited to play a rural white team. He appeared as a guest on The Cosby Show in 1991, and in Little Napoleons. He also appeared in several movies including The Mighty Quinn (1989). After years of hard living began taking its toll on his health, he retired to Guyana in 1994, where he collapsed at the airport and died a few hours later at the age of 60. He is survived by five children from three marriages.He also has a grand daughter named Mica.
Legacy
BBC Radio Drama have founded the Norman Beaton Fellowship (NBF) to "broaden the range of actors available to Radio Drama producers across the UK by encouraging applicants from non-traditional training backgrounds".
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