
Geoffrey Palmer
Born June 4, 1927 · Finchley, Middlesex, England, UK
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE (4 June 1927 - 5 November 2020) was an English actor known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005). His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs. Brown (1997), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was born on 4 June 1927 in North Finchley, Middlesex. He was the son of Frederick Charles Palmer, who was a chartered surveyor, and Norah Gwendolen (née Robins). He attended Highgate School from September 1939 to December 1945. He served as a corporal instructor in small arms and field training in the Royal Marines during his national service from 1946 to 1948, following which he briefly worked as an unpaid trainee assistant stage manager. Palmer's early television appearances included multiple roles in episodes of The Army Game (Granada Television), two episodes of The Baron and as a property agent in Cathy Come Home (1966). After a major break in John Osborne's West of Suez at the Royal Court with Ralph Richardson, he acted in major productions at the Royal Court and for the National Theatre Company and was directed by Laurence Olivier in J. B. Priestley's Eden End. Palmer found the play so dull, however, that he was deterred from a stage career. Two BBC sitcom roles brought him attention in the 1970s: the hapless brother-in-law of Reggie Perrin in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), and the phlegmatic dentist Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983). In 1978, Palmer appeared as organized crimelord Simon Sinclair in London Weekend Television's hard-hitting police drama The Professionals, the episode entitled "Where the Jungle Ends". Palmer played Doctor Price in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Kipper and the Corpse" (1979), determined to have breakfast amidst the confusion caused by the death of a guest and Fawlty's inept way of handling the emergency. In 1986, Palmer appeared as Donald Fairchild in the first series of an ITV sitcom, Executive Stress, alongside Penelope Keith. He later left, and was replaced by Peter Bowles. Palmer later starred opposite Judi Dench for over a decade in another BBC sitcom, As Time Goes By (1992–2005). In 1997, he also appeared with Dench in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which he portrayed Admiral Roebuck to Dench's M, and Mrs Brown, playing Sir Henry Ponsonby to Dench's Queen Victoria. Palmer married Sally Green in 1963. They had a daughter, Harriet, and a son, Charles, a television director. Palmer was a longtime resident of Lee Common in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, and enjoyed fly fishing in his spare time. At the time of his death, he resided in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Palmer died peacefully at his home on 5 November 2020, aged 93.
Notable Appearances
Movies

Tomorrow Never Dies

Paddington

A Fish Called Wanda

Peter Pan

The Honorary Consul

The Pink Panther 2

Anna and the King

The Madness of King George

W.E.

Mrs Brown

Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned

A Zed & Two Noughts

O Lucky Man!

Clockwise

Run For Your Wife

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened

Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley

Doctor Who: The Mutants

To Olivia

Stiff Upper Lips

Doctor Who and the Silurians

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Prize of Arms

Piccadilly Jim

Rat

Lost Christmas

The Young Visiters

The Uninvited

Goodbye

Ring of Spies

A Story to Frighten the Children

The Funny Side of Christmas

Bert & Dickie

A Question of Attribution

Cathy Come Home

The Battle of Billy's Pond

Only Make Believe

1+1=1.5

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

Hawks

Drama '63: A Well Dressed Man

The Insurance Man

Radio Pictures

No Place Like Earth

Mr. Kershaw's Dream System

Reckless: The Sequel

Smack and Thistle

The Outsider

Queen Victoria's Last Love: Abdul Karim

Absurd Person Singular

Stalag Luft

Incident at Midnight

Season's Greetings

The Chequers Manoeuvre

Michael Regan

Mr. Men & Little Miss: The Christmas Letter

Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire

James Bond's Greatest Hits

Safe at Work?
TV Shows

BBC Play of the Month

The Avengers

Crown Court

The Saint

The Wednesday Play

Natural World

ITV Playhouse

The Professionals

No Hiding Place

Bergerac

An Audience with...

Thirty-Minute Theatre

Inspector Morse

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

The Sweeney

Blackadder

Van der Valk

The Expert

Churchill's People

Angels

Screen One

The Hollow Crown

Out of the Unknown

The Troubleshooters

Gideon's Way

The Goodies

Softly, Softly

Doomwatch

As Time Goes By

Ashes to Ashes

Mystery and Imagination

Fawlty Towers

Suspense

The Human Jungle

Dalgliesh

Detective

The Kenny Everett Television Show

The Man in Room 17

Happy Ever After

Mr. Men and Little Miss

Colditz

Londoners

Six Days of Justice

He Knew He Was Right

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

The Further Adventures of the Musketeers

Bill Brand

Oxbridge Blues

Armchair Theatre

The Odd Man

Absolute Power

Butterflies

Whoops Apocalypse

Scorpion Tales

The Legacy of Reginald Perrin

The Strange World of Gurney Slade

Executive Stress

Death of an Expert Witness

Hot Metal










