Walter Sparrow

Walter Leonard Sparrow (22 January 1927 – 31 May 2000) was an English film and television actor best known for his appearance as Duncan in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner.

Born in Eltham, London in 1927, Sparrow began his career as a stand-up comic before moving to acting with a period with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first film role was in 1964, in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors , with Christopher Lee. Subsequent films, interspersed between countless TV appearances, included the 1969 sex fantasy Zeta One , Young Sherlock Holmes , and the acclaimed 1988 film The Accidental Tourist starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis.

His career enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s, with Sparrow playing key roles in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as the blinded retainer Duncan, 1993's The Secret Garden as gruff gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and the 1995 American coming-of-age film Now and Then as tragic drifter 'Crazy Pete'. In 1998 he starred in Tony Harrison 's film Prometheus .

He received positive notice for his role in television serial The Mind of the Enemy (1965).^[1]

Sparrow's even more prolific TV appearances included regular roles in the soap opera Emmerdale Farm , as three different minor characters in 1980, 1987 and 1993, and the comedy Paris, and guest spots on Hugh and I , Adam Adamant Lives! , Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) , Z-Cars , The Onedin Line , All Creatures Great and Small , Alas Smith and Jones , Rumpole of the Bailey , One Foot in the Grave , Ernie in Birds of a Feather , and The Bill among many others.

Sparrow is also well known for playing Maurice, a peasant who was threatened to be shipped to the Americas, in the 1998 Cinderella remake Ever After .

One of his more notable guest appearances was in the 1989 episode Danger UXD of the sitcom Only Fools and Horses , which had 16.1 million viewers, as sex shop owner Dirty Barry.^[2] His last appearance was in 2000 in an episode of the BBC's medical drama series Doctors .

• Walter Sparrow at IMDb
• Walter Sparrow on MTEDb
• Walter Sparrow on Hollywood.com at archive.today (archived 2013年01月25日)

• 1927 births
• 2000 deaths
• English male television actors
• English male film actors
• English male stage actors
• Actors from the Royal Borough of Greenwich
• Male actors from Kent
• 20th-century English male actors
• Royal Shakespeare Company members
• People from Eltham

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