The L-Shaped Room and Prime Suspect actor Tom Bell has died
British film, stage, and television actor Tom Bell died at age 73 on Oct. 4 in Brighton, Sussex.
Perhaps best remembered for playing opposite Helen Mirren in the first three seasons of the British television series Prime Suspect, Tom Bell (born on Aug. 2, 1933, in Liverpool, Lancashire) was featured in numerous films – usually in supporting roles.
Titles include his big-screen debut, Joseph Losey’s crime drama The Criminal (1960), starring Stanley Baker and Losey’s fellow U.S. political refugee Sam Wanamaker; Bryan Forbes’ 1963 socio-psychological drama The L-Shaped Room, as Leslie Caron’s romantic interest; Richard Lester’s Royal Flash (1975), starring Malcolm McDowell.
Titles released in the last quarter of century or so, include David Leland’s comedy-drama Wish You Were Here (1987), starring Emily Lloyd; Peter Medak’s real-life-based crime drama The Krays (1990), opposite Billie Whitelaw (decades earlier, Bell’s fellow pupil at the Bradford Civic Theatre) and brothers Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp as murderous twins; and Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books (1991), starring John Gielgud as the titular character.
In Prime Suspect, Bell played Detective Sergeant Bill Otley, a sexist officer who frequently clashed with Helen Mirren’s character Jane Tennison. For his efforts on Season 1 (1991), Bell received a Best Television Actor BAFTA nomination. (He had been previously nominated in the Best Television Actor category for his portrayal of [fictional] convicted armed robber Frank Ross in director Jim Goddard and teleplay writer Trevor Preston’s 1978 revenge/mystery crime drama Out.)
Bell would return in two other Prime Suspect seasons: Season 3 (1993) and Season 7 (the final one, 2006).
A notable stage credit: The co-lead character Horst in the 1979 U.K. premiere of Martin Sherman’s landmark Bent, presented at the Royal Court Theatre. Set in a Nazi prison camp, the play examines the increasingly intimate relationship between two gay prisoners. Ian McKellen was Bell’s costar.
Off screen, Tom Bell was known as a troublemaker, once heckling Prince Phillip at an awards ceremony, yelling, “Tell us a funny story.”