Lionel Charles Jeffries (born 10 June 1926) is a British actor, screenwriter and film director.
Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne and then trained at RADA after his World War II service, for which he was awarded the Burma Star. He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield for 2 years and appeared in early British television plays.
He built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character ...
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Lionel Charles Jeffries (born 10 June 1926) is a British actor, screenwriter and film director.
Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne and then trained at RADA after his World War II service, for which he was awarded the Burma Star. He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield for 2 years and appeared in early British television plays.
He built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself. For example, he played the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries is actually six months younger than Van Dyke. His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967).
In the 1970s Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films,...
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