Paul Eddington

Paul Clark Eddington (18 June 1927 – 4 November 1995) was an English actor who played Jerry Leadbetter in the television sitcom The Good Life (1975–1978) and politician Jim Hacker in the sitcom Yes Minister (1980–1984) and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister (1986–1988). He was a four-time BAFTA TV and two-time Olivier Award nominee.

Early life Eddington was born in Paddington, London to decorative artist Albert Clark Eddington (1887–1955) and Frances Mary (née Roberts) (1898–1958). He was raised in St John's Wood. The family were Quakers. Albert Eddington was related to the Somerset shoemaking Clark family and the scientist Sir Arthur Eddington, Albert and Sir Arthur being second cousins, both great-grandsons of William Eddington (1755–1806).

Paul was brought up by his parents with strict family values. His father had been "emotionally shattered" on his return from the First World War, which led to Paul being a lifelong pacifist. He worked for Sheffield Repertory Theatre, a theatre company based at Sheffield Playhouse. In 1956, he played his first major role on television as the corrupt policeman PC Tom Carr in the Dixon of Dock Green episode The Rotten Apple, and later that year he became a regular cast member of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Initially he played minor characters, but in the fourth series (1959–60), he played Will Scarlet.

He had a leading role in "Liberty Bar", a 1960 episode of the BBC version of Maigret, playing Harry Brown, an Australian entrepreneur. He had roles in episodes of The Avengers (1963), The Prisoner (1967) and the final episode of The Champions (1969). He was a main cast member of the television series Frontier (1968). He also had a supporting role in Hammer Films' The Devil Rides Out (1968), an episode of Van der Valk in 1972, and appeared as a "straight man" (substituting for regular stooge Henry McGee) in a 1976 episode of The Benny Hill Show. He also appeared in most episodes of the ATV series Hine (1971). In this he played Astor Harris, a member of an arms dealing firm named Pendles. Eddington appeared as civil servant Strand in the last series of Special Branch (1974).

Career peak Although he was an actor for all his adult life, it was not until Eddington was in his late forties that he became a household name because of his role in The Good Life, first screened by the BBC in 1975, His last roles included Guy Wheeler, a corrupt property developer in the Minder episode "The Wrong Goodbye" (1989); as Richard Cuthbertson alongside Good Life co-star Felicity Kendal in the TV dramatisation of The Camomile Lawn (1992); the voice of Badger in The Adventures of Mole and Justice Shallow in Henry IV (1995); a BBC adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2. He was reunited with another Good Life co-star Richard Briers in a run of the play Home in 1994.

Final years and death Eddington's autobiography, So Far, So Good, was published in 1995. On 30 October 1995, five days before Eddington's death, the BBC aired an edition of Face to Face in which he discussed his life, career and battle with lymphoma. On that show he was asked how he would like to be remembered:

Eddington had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, known as mycosis fungoides, when he was 28. The ailment was to cause his death eventually, but in the intervening four decades, Eddington and his immediate family kept his condition private. It only became public knowledge in 1994, when Eddington responded to press speculation about his darkening skin and hair loss. He said “I’d always had a little bit of cancer but now I have the real thing, it is exciting somehow.”

Eddington died in Southwark, London, on 4 November 1995. He and Patricia, his wife of 43 years, had three sons and a daughter.

Selected filmography