Noel Frank Johnson (28 December 1916 – 1 October 1999) was an English actor. He was the voice of special agent

Dick Barton ''Dick Barton – Special Agent'' is a radio thriller serial that was broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-mi ...

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

and

Dan Dare Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dare appeared in the ''Eagle'' comic story ''Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future'' from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in repri ...

Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...

Life

Johnson was born 28 December 1916 in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and attended

Bromsgrove School Bromsgrove School is a co-educational independent day and boarding school in the Worcestershire town of Bromsgrove, England. Founded in 1553, it is one of the oldest public schools in Britain, and one of the 14 founding members of the Headmaste ...

, where his fictional character Dick Barton was listed on the honours boards.''Daily Mail'' 17 March 1947 p.3 "Dick Barton wins - at his old school!" He married Leonora Peacock in 1942: they had one son Gareth Johnson. He died 1 October 1999.''Daily Mail'' 5 October 1999 p 18 "Noel Johnson, voice of Dick Barton, dies at 82"

Career

After wartime service in the

Royal Army Service Corps The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and dom ...

, including evacuation from Dunkirk, he was invalided out, and joined the BBC Repertory Company in 1945. He was the original voice of Dick Barton from 7 October 1946, performing over 300 episodes before quitting in 1949 to pursue a stage career.''Daily Mail'' 3 January 1949 p. 1 "Dick Barton Quits - but the show goes on" He was paid £18 per week but felt that he deserved much more for such a popular character. He returned to play Dick Barton once more in a special series in 1972. In 1969 he appeared in a BBC seven-part David Ellis radio thriller called ''Find The Lady''. He later played

on the

serial, but his name was kept secret. His assured upper class voice cadence made him ideal for certain characters, notably in the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

dramatic adaptation of ''

A Dance to the Music of Time ''A Dance to the Music of Time'' is a 12-volume ''roman-fleuve'' by English writer Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in Eng ...

'' by

Anthony Powell Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English. Powell' ...

. This was broadcast as 26 one-hour episodes between 1978 and 1981; Johnson played the novel sequence's narrator Nicholas Jenkins, while the younger Nicholas was played by Gareth Johnson in the first 18 episodes. In the last quarter of the series – in which Jenkins is in late middle-age – Johnson plays Jenkins alone. His movie career included roles in ''

Frenzy ''Frenzy'' is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the 1966 novel ''Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Squa ...

'', ''

The First Great Train Robbery ''The First Great Train Robbery'' (known in the United States as ''The Great Train Robbery'') is a 1978 Irish heist comedy film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his 1975 novel '' The Great Train Robbery''. ...

'', '' For Your Eyes Only'' and his last film ''

Withnail & I ''Withnail and I'' is a 1987 British black comedy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Richard E. Gran ...

'' in 1987, where he played a militaristic and drunken bar owner. Johnson also appeared in numerous television dramas until the mid-1990s, including ''

Dixon of Dock Green ''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 19 ...

'', ''

Coronation Street ''Coronation Street'' is an English soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres around a cobbled, terraced street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner-city Salford. Origi ...

'', ''

Out of the Unknown ''Out of the Unknown'' is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Most episodes of the first three series were a dramatisation of a science f ...

'', ''

Doomwatch ''Doomwatch'' is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist ...

'', ''

Death of an Expert Witness ''Death of an Expert Witness'' is an Adam Dalgliesh novel by P. D. James, published in 1977. It begins with the discovery of a young girl who has been murdered and dumped in a quarry. However, this is not the focus of the novel, but rather is u ...

'', ''

Colditz Colditz () is a small town in the district of Leipzig, in Saxony, Germany. It is best known for Colditz Castle, the site of the Oflag IV-C POW camp for officers in World War II. Geography Colditz is situated in the Leipzig Bay, southeast of the ...

'', ''

Rumpole of the Bailey ''Rumpole of the Bailey'' is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, o ...

'', ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' (in the serials ''

The Underwater Menace ''The Underwater Menace'' is the half-missing fifth serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series '' Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 14 January to 4 February 1967. In this seri ...

'' and ''

Invasion of the Dinosaurs ''Invasion of the Dinosaurs'', simply titled ''Invasion'' in Part One, is the second serial of the 11th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 12 Januar ...

''), ''

Inspector Morse Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, GM, is the eponymous fictional character in the series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter. On television, he appears in the 33-episode drama series '' Inspector Morse'' (1987–2000), ...

'' and ''

A Touch of Frost A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...

'', amongst many others.

Filmography

References

External links

*
Noel Johnson obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Noel 1916 births 1999 deaths English male radio actors Male actors from Birmingham, West Midlands People educated at Bromsgrove School 20th-century English male actors British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Service Corps soldiers