David Markham

David Markham (3 April 1913 – 15 December 1983) was an English stage and film actor for over forty years.

Markham was born Peter Basil Harrison in Wick, Worcestershire and died in Hartfield, East Sussex.

In 1937 he married Olive Dehn (1914–2007), a BBC Radio dramatist. They had four daughters: Sonia, an illustrator; Kika (b. 1940), an actress, widow of actor Corin Redgrave; Petra (b. 1944), an actress; and Jehane, a poet and dramatist, widow of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack.

In World War II, he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector, before being allowed to do forestry work.

Markham appeared occasionally in cinema and often on television. He appeared in Carol Reed's film The Stars Look Down (1939) and in François Truffaut's films Two English Girls (1972), in which he plays a fortuneteller with his daughter Kika, and Day for Night (1973). He played the father of Robin Phillips in two films, Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969) and Tales From The Crypt (1972).

Markham portrayed Prime Minister H. H. Asquith (a close look-alike) in the 1981 BBC Wales drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George, alongside his daughter Kika Markham, who played Lloyd George's secretary, lover and later second wife – Frances Stevenson.

Selected filmography

 * Murder in the Family (1938) – Michael Osborne
 * The Stars Look Down (1940) – Arthur Barras
 * The Blakes Slept Here (1953) – Edward
 * The Dawn Killer (1959) – Mr. Hawkes
 * Last of the Long-haired Boys (1968) – Brindle
 * Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969) – Mr. Pater – Roddy's Father
 * Family Life (1971)
 * Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971) – Doctor Burgess
 * Two English Girls (1972) – Palmist
 * Tales From The Crypt (1972) – Father – Edward Elliot (segment 3 "Poetic Justice")
 * Z.P.G. (1972) – Dr. Herrick
 * Day for Night (1973) – Doctor Michael Nelson
 * La guerre du pétrole n'aura pas lieu (1975) – Thomson
 * Feelings (1975) – Professor Roland
 * The Three Hostages (1977) – Greenslade
 * La petite fille en velours bleu (1978) – Consul
 * Off to Philadelphia in the Morning (1978) – William Sterndale Bennett
 * Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979) – Dean Borsh
 * Tess (1979) – Reverend Clare
 * Richard's Things (1980) – Mr Morris
 * The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981) TV series – Herbert Henry Asquith
 * Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981) (mini) TV series – Marlborough
 * Gandhi (1982) – Older Englishman