David Lyon
Acting
Biography
David Laurie Lyon (16 May 1941 – 7 June 2013) was a British stage, television, and film actor. Of Scottish descent, David Lyon was born in 1941 to Joe Lyon, a diamond merchant, and his wife Margaret. David spent much of his childhood in Sierra Leone where his father worked, before being sent home to be educated at Crofton House in Dumfriesshire in Scotland. He won a scholarship to Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, but was forced to leave education at the age of 16 when his father was declared bankrupt. He first worked in Glasgow for Royal Insurance, before moving south to England to work as a flooring salesman in Birmingham. At the age of 30 he decided to switch careers to acting. Lyon studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama as a mature student, and did not take paid acting work until 1975 at the Manchester Library Theatre. From 1976, he performed regularly for two decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company. With them, he appeared in plays which include: Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Henry VI, The Winter's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. With the RSC he also performed in several modern plays, including The Innocent (1979) and After Aida (1985–86). He also worked steadily in television after 1980, and in a few feature films as well. In 1983 he had a lead role as the newsreader in the feature film The Ploughman's Lunch, and was Lieutenant Colonel Vernon Erskine-Crum in the serial Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy. He was a cast member of the television series The Gemini Factor (1987), and was Commander Brian Huxtable in the BBC crime drama series Between the Lines (1992). In the original BBC version of the political thriller House of Cards (1990), he played the "thoroughly decent" Prime Minister Henry Collingridge, opposite Ian Richardson as the Machiavellian Francis Urquhart. He was also a familiar face on series such as The Bill, Lovejoy, Taggart, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Silent Witness, and Poirot. Lyon lived for many years with fellow RSC actor Zoë Wanamaker. He met his future wife Sandra Clark in 1975 at his first acting job at the Library Theatre in Manchester, but she was married to someone else at the time. In 1988 he encountered Clark again when they played Capulet and Lady Montague in Romeo and Juliet in Stratford-upon-Avon. They wed in 1989, and Lyon had two step-children from Clark's previous marriage.
Known For
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.
Midsomer Murders
From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Pie in the Sky is a British offbeat police comedy drama programme starring Richard Griffiths and Maggie Steed, created by Andrew Payne and first broadcast in five series on BBC1 between 13 March 1994 and 17 August 1997 as well as being syndicated on other channels in other countries, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series departs slightly from other police dramas in that the protagonist, Henry Crabbe, while still being an on-duty policeman, is also the head chef of the title restaurant set in the fictional town of Middleton and county of Westershire.
Pie in the Sky
The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.
Lovejoy
Archie MacDonald, a young restaurateur is called back to his childhood home of Glenbogle where he is told he is the new Laird of Glenbogle.
Monarch of the Glen
An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.
Performance
The Chief is a British crime drama transmitted on ITV from 20 April 1990 to 16 June 1995. Produced by Anglia Television, it centred on the politics at the top of a typical English police force in its continual battle to solve the problems the times, in this case the fictional Eastland of East Anglia.
The Chief
Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatising the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th-century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.
Reilly: Ace of Spies
Introduced by renowned English actor Edward Woodward, In Suspicious Circumstances is an anthology of reenactments depicting real-life murder mysteries, some famous and some obscure, exploring cases with elements of miscarriage of justice, unsolved mysteries, and unusual circumstances, often spanning different historical periods.
In Suspicious Circumstances
Frustrated at a new moderate Conservative government and deprived of a promotion to a senior position, chief whip Francis Urquhart prepares a meticulous plot to bring down the Prime Minister then to take his place.
House of Cards
Stanley Duke's life is thrown into chaos when his son is diagnosed with schizophrenia, and his home becomes a battleground for his past and present wives and other women.
Stanley and the Women
Englishwoman Christabel Burton marries German lawyer Peter Bielenberg and resides in WWII-era Nazi Germany. When Peter is arrested for plotting against Hitler, Christabel is forced to confront her loyalties and consider using her connection to Winston Churchill to help him.
Christabel
Prison inmate Colin Briggs is introduced to gardening, and when his thriving prison garden attracts the attention of flamboyant gardening expert Georgina Woodhouse, she offers to sponsor the inmates in an upcoming flower show. At the Hampton Court Flower Show, Colin meets Georgina's daughter and romance is in bloom.
Greenfingers
Harry Webster (David Lyon) is an apparently normal husband and father who resides in contemporary Nottingham, England, which was once host to a flourishing textile industry. One day, Harry leaves his house and vanishes. A note he left behind alludes to a double life he no longer wishes to lead. His wife Liz (Annette Crosbie) conducts a search for her husband. Her findings raise a disturbing question: Did Harry have anything to do with a series of recent factory bombings?
The Disappearance of Harry
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth.
Defence of the Realm
As the UK begins its military engagement in the Falklands, a BBC news journalist attempts to climb up from his working-class roots, at any cost, lying to those around him to get what he wants, only to discover that he is the recipient of a deception far more clever than his own.
The Ploughman's Lunch
In the docklands of East London stands the Empire State, a nightclub full of magic and mystery. Designed like an ocean liner, it's become a battle ground where anything can happen. In the midst of the action, a young boy stows aboard to search for his friend who has disappeared in the entrails of the club.
Empire State
At the height of the cold war, a known Russian spy ("Kyril") is sent to the UK under falsely reported pretenses in order to hopefully indirectly spark an unknown mole in the KGB to reveal himself; the endeavor eventually has repercussions which none of the initial players could have predicted.
Codename: Kyril
After restaurateur Sam Wong dies in a telephone booth after making a call, law clerk Elaine Choi is tasked with executing his will. In order for the will to be valid, it needs to be signed by its recipients, but Choi finds that each of them are reluctant to do so.
Ping Pong
Macbeth and his wife murder Duncan in order to gain his crown, but the bloodbath doesn't stop there, and things supernatural combine to bring the Macbeths down.