John Bennett

The lean, rather emaciated-looking John Bennett studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After years in repertory theatre, he made his feature debut in 1960, and, thereafter, appeared regularly on British screens. He was prone to perform in diverse ethnic guises, often adopting heavy make-up and using his penchant for accents and dialects. One of his first notable appearances was as the evil Injun Joe in the BBC children's series The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1960). He came to be much in demand for crime-time TV series, like The Avengers (1961), The Saint (1962) and Z Cars (1962), effortlessly switching from menacing roles to law enforcement. In feature films, he was generally confined to background support, except for his titular lead in the little-seen drama The Barber of Stamford Hill (1963). He also provided an effective thread connecting the various vignettes of The House That Dripped Blood (1971), as the sceptical investigating Chief Inspector. Bennett