His next prominent screen role was in The Winslow Boy (1948), based on Terence Rattigan's play, as Dickie Winslow, who enjoys the publicity when his family attempt to prove the innocence of his younger brother, expelled from the Navy for allegedly stealing a postal order. He had previously appeared in the stage version, at the Lyric Theatre (1946).Although he became typecast in films as a character actor and in light leading roles, Watling switched easily between thrillers and comedy. In the satirical Meet Mr Lucifer (1953, starring Stanley Holloway and based on the actor-writer Arnold Ridley's play Beggar My Neighbour), Watling and Peggy Cummins played a young married couple, just two of many people whom Stanley Holloway, as the Devil King in a provincial pantomime, tries to "rescue" from the relatively new medium of television, which he believes is making them too happy.Later, in the comedy Three on a Spree (1961), a variation on the novel, play and previous films entitled Brewster's Millions, Watling starred as Michael Brewster, who has to spend a million pounds in order to get eight million.Such roles never put Watling at the forefront of British film stars, but his versatility enabled him to notch up more than 50 pictures during his career. His others included the upstairs-downstairs Victorian romantic drama The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947), Alfred Hitchock's less-than-successful costume epic Under Capricorn (1949), the Douglas Bader biopic Reach for the Sky (1956), The Admirable Crichton (1957) and the Second World War naval drama Sink the Bismarck! (1959).On television, Watling had already appeared in The Invisible Man (1958), Danger Man (1960), Anna Karenina (1961) and Ghost Squad (1963), when he landed the role of Don Henderson, sales director at the Scott Furlong aviation factory, in The Plane Makers (1963-65).
The dramas both on the factory floor and in the boardroom were a big hit with viewers, even more so after the series was retitled The Power Game (1965-66, 1969) and concentrated solely on the executives, led by the ruthless tycoon John Wilder (Patrick Wymark).As in the cinema, Watling later switched to comedy. He took the part of a duke living close to the happy-go-lucky vagrant (Hugh Lloyd) who inherits a title, a country estate and a fortune in the writer Michael Pertwee's ITV series Lord Tramp (1977). Then, he played Dr Carmichael, one of three elderly GPs making way for new blood in the form of two young women, in Doctor's Daughters (1981), which was written by Richard Gordon and Ralph Thomas, and began life as a pilot the previous year.His guest roles on television included the Yeti-seeking Professor Travers in the Doctor Who stories "The Abominable Snowmen" (1967) and "The Web of Fear" (1968), Sir Desmond Hooper in Fortunes of War (1987), an earl in Jeeves and Wooster (1990) and a colonel in Heartbeat (1994).Watling cited his proudest achievement as saving Frinton Summer Theatre when, in 1974, it faced closure. With his own money, he mounted a season at the Essex seaside resort where he and his family had holidayed for many years and this enabled it to survive until new funding was forthcoming.Watling was married to the actress Patricia Hicks His stepdaughter is the actress Dilys Watling. His daughter Deborah (who played his daughter on television in The Newcomers) and son Giles also followed him into acting.
Another son, Adam, was killed in a fall of snow in 1952, a year after his birth.Anthony Hayward. Frank Newby, engineer: born Barnsley, Yorkshire 26 March 1926; married Evelyn Hogg (two sons, one daughter); died London 10 May 2001. Frank Newby, engineer: born Barnsley, Yorkshire 26 March 1926; married Evelyn Hogg (two sons, one daughter); died London 10 May 2001. Frank Newby was one of the leading structural engineers whose work spanned the last 50 years of the 20th century. He brought his creativity to bear with architects who designed in many different ways, including Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, Eero Saarinen, Cedric Price, James Stirling, and the practices of SOM and YRM, and yet made a distinctive contribution.Newby was a Yorkshireman, born in Barnsley, who read Engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1943 to 1947.
