For 10 years, the actor Alfred Burke, who has died aged 92, starred as the downbeat private detective Frank Marker in the popular television series Public Eye (1965-75). The character was intended as a British rival to Raymond Chandler's American gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Tough, unattached and self-sufficient, Marker could take a beating in the service of his often wealthy clients without quitting. "Marker wasn't exciting, he wasn't rich," Burke said. "He could be defined in negatives."

An ABC TV press release introduced the character as a "thin, shabby, middle-aged man with a slightly grim sense of humour and an aura of cynical incorruptibility. His office is a dingy south London attic within sound of Clapham Junction. He can't afford a secretary, much less an assistant, and when he needs a car, he hires a runabout from the local garage."

Tall, sharp-featured, saturnine and with an incisive voice, Burke was perfectly cast as Marker. He thought up the character's name himself – originally the detective was to be called Frank Marvin. In 1972 the role brought him a Bafta nomination for best actor. The following year, Marker was voted the most compulsive male character in a TV Times poll.

Burke – who was always known as Alfie – was born in Peckham, south-east London, to Irish parents. His father, William, worked in a fur warehouse. He left school in 1933 to take a job as an office boy with a firm that specialised in repairing railway wagons. Soon afterwards he became a steward in a City club for businessmen, but left after an uncharacteristic dispute with a barmaid which ended with her squirting a soda siphon in his face.

He dared not tell his parents that he was out of work, so he ran away to Brighton, returning to London to take a job in a silk warehouse in Cheapside. He began to perform with a local amateur dramatic group run by a headteacher who persuaded him to apply for a London county council scholarship to Rada. Before the principal, Sir Kenneth Barnes, and his colleagues, Burke declaimed, "Is this a dagger I see before me?", read a Tennyson poem and played two parts from The Last of Mrs Cheyney. He took up his place at Rada in 1937.

Two years later he appeared on stage professionally for the first time, in The Universal Legacy at the Barn theatre in Shere, Surrey. The second world war then intervened. Burke registered as a conscientious objector, and was directed to work on the land. After the war, he went back to theatre work at Farnham, Surrey, where he met Barbara Bonelle, a stage manager, who became his wife.

Burke then did a series of tours with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (which became the Arts Council). The tours were aimed at bringing culture to "the people" – in his case, in the Welsh valleys and the Lake District.

In the late 1940s, he joined the Young Vic company and went on to spend time in Manchester at the Library theatre, at the Nottingham Playhouse and in London, appearing in Pablo Picasso's play Desire Caught By the Tail at the Watergate theatre. He was at Birmingham Rep for the three parts of Henry VI, which transferred to the Old Vic in London in 1953.

By the late 1950s, Burke had established himself as a serious stage actor and a useful character actor in films including the war movies Bitter Victory (1957) and No Time to Die (1958). He played the industrial agitator Travers in The Angry Silence (1960), in which a worker (Richard Attenborough) is shunned by his colleagues for refusing to take part in a strike. In 1964 he appeared in the science-fiction movie Children of the Damned, a sequel to Village of the Damned.

On TV, he took roles in episodes of The Saint, The Avengers and Z Cars, as well as several editions of ITV's Play of the Week. In 1964 his own script, Where Are They Now?, written under the pen name of Frank Hanna, was produced as a Play of the Week. The following year, he slid into the arms of a welcoming public as Marker. In between starring in seven series of Public Eye, he had leading roles at the Leeds Playhouse in Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV, in 1970, and in Pictures in a Bath of Acid, as the writer August Strindberg, in 1971.

Burke enhanced his TV popularity with parts including the father in The Brontës of Haworth (1973), Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1977) and Major Richter, a German commandant in occupied Guernsey, in the series Enemy at the Door (1978). He portrayed Richter as essentially decent, despite the dire obligations of war.

After a recurring role in the series Sophia and Constance (1988), based on Arnold Bennett's novel The Old Wives' Tale, he continued to take small TV parts throughout his 70s and 80s. He had his highest-profile role for years when he appeared – albeit briefly – as Armando Dippet, the former Hogwarts headteacher, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

He and Barbara had two sets of twins – Jacob and Harriet, and Kelly and Louisa – and they remained on good terms. He spent the last 25 years with Hedi Argent. They all survive him, along with 11 grandchildren.



Michael Coveney writes: As he grew older, Burke's stage voice became even huskier and more distinctive. Along with his natural authority and imposing presence, this served him well over many seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1980s into the new century, both at Stratford-upon-Avon and in their new London home in the Barbican Centre.

As Duncan in the RSC's Macbeth (1986) and Egeus in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1994), he summoned a powerful sense of another age and morality. He played the best ever Gonzalo in Nicholas Hytner's The Tempest (1988); a fine Lepidus in John Caird's Antony and Cleopatra (1992); a wonderfully frail but deserving old Adam in As You Like It, directed by David Thacker (1992); and a not-to-be-messed-with Escalus in Michael Boyd's Romeo and Juliet (2000). In Steven Pimlott's 2000 production of Richard II, he delivered John of Gaunt's "sceptred isle" speech with more retrospective anger than sing-song melancholy.

Burke continued to return to the stage in the new century, appearing in his 90th year at the National theatre as the Shepherd in Frank McGuinness's version of Oedipus.

The most interesting of his later stage performances, however, were perhaps his two roles in John Barton' s 1994 Peer Gynt, translated by Christopher Fry. He played both Solveig's father and the Button Moulder. Barton had unearthed a previously unperformed scene in which the stern and implacable father promised his daughter's hand in marriage, as long as Peer atoned for all his sins. This gave Burke's appearance in the fifth act as the Button Moulder, who comes to collect Peer's soul, an unusual and surprising resonance.


• Alfred Burke, actor, born 28 February 1918; died 16 February 2011.


Nancy Carr, SVP corporate communications for Hallmark Channels, died today after suddenly falling ill earlier this week. She was 50. Carr, a 20-year PR veteran, joined Hallmark in 2005 as VP corporate communications. Before that, she spent 15 years at CBS, rising to VP communications where she oversaw publicity for the network's movies and miniseries as well as such series as CSI, CSI: Miami, Everybody Loves Raymond and Without a Trace. Carr served on the Board of Governors of the TV Academy and served as treasurer of the TV Publicity Executives Committee. She was also very passionate about cat rescue. There will be no service, however people are invited to make a donation to two organizations which Nancy supported and meant a lot to her: feralcatcaretakers.org and fixnation.org.

"Hallmark Channels is saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague, Nancy Carr," the company's president and CEO Bill Abbott said. "We are grateful to Nancy for guiding the company’s corporate media strategy for more than five years. On the personal side, those of us who cared deeply for and about Nancy will never forget her dedication to life’s smallest creatures, as she worked tirelessly for animal rights and animal rescue. The company sends deep and sincere condolences to Nancy’s family."

“It’s a very sad day," Carr's former colleagues at CBS' communications department said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with her husband, Ronnie and her family. We’ll remember Nancy as the architect behind some of CBS’s biggest mini-series and live events campaigns, as well as, an exceptionally dedicated colleague and most importantly, a kind and caring person.”


Walter Seltzer dies at 96; former Hollywood press agent made a successful leap to producing

He led successful ad campaigns for 1935's 'Mutiny on the Bounty' and 1955's 'Marty' and later helped Charlton Heston make 'Soylent Green' and 'The Omega Man.' In retirement he was a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent-turned-producer who started out at MGM in the 1930s and made an enduring mark on the industry in the 1980s as a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, has died. He was 96.

Seltzer died Friday of age-related illness at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's retirement home in Woodland Hills, said Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the fund.

His successful ad campaign for MGM's "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935) helped him land a job in the studio's publicity department, where employees alternated giving stories to the gossip columnists of the day — Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons — and were told how to mark their Oscar ballots, Seltzer later recalled.

In charge of marketing for the heartwarming 1955 movie "Marty," Seltzer inadvertently helped Burt Lancaster's production company make film history: The producers were the first to spend more on an Oscar campaign — about $60,000 more — than they did to make the low-budget film, according to "Reel Winners: Movie Award Trivia" (2005).

Part of the $400,000 spent on marketing went toward private screenings.

"We offered to send a print of the picture, a projector and a projectionist to the home of anyone who would invite 20 academy members to a screening," Seltzer told the Associated Press in 2005.

He was credited with "reawakening a sleeper": "Marty" received four Academy Awards, including for best picture.

By the late 1950s, Seltzer was helping to run Marlon Brando's production company and in the 1960s began making a series of movies with his close friend, actor Charlton Heston. The films included the 1970s science-fiction thrillers "Soylent Green" and "The Omega Man."

"Though through the years we disagreed violently politically, we were a good team," Seltzer said of Heston in the New York Sun after the actor died in 2008.

Seltzer was part of a raft of press agents who made the leap to producing with "remarkable success," according to a 1964 New York Times article that ran under the headline "Hollywood Turnabout: Flicks From Former Flacks."

Retired from filmmaking by the late 1970s, Seltzer devoted himself to the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which cares for aging actors and others in the industry at its 40-acre campus in Woodland Hills. He served on its board for 40 years.

In the 1980s, Seltzer co-chaired a capital campaign that raised about $50 million for the fund, which supports a hospital and retirement home.

Old-fashioned arm twisting and the star power of his famous friends helped him reel in donations.

He and co-chair Robert Blumofe, a retired producer, prevailed upon such actors as Heston, Lancaster and Kirk Douglas to dine with business leaders before they were asked to support the cause.

The third member of the fundraising team was Edie Wasserman, wife of Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman. She oversaw the overall campaign but refused to take a title, Blumofe later said.

In 1986, the Motion Picture and Television Fund honored Seltzer with its Silver Medallion for humanitarian achievement. One previous recipient was actor Jean Hersholt, who in 1940 found the property that became the fund's campus.

Both as an active donor and advocate, Seltzer "continued to work for and support the mission of the fund until the very end," Ken Scherer, chief executive of the fund's foundation, said in a statement

The son of a pioneering film exhibitor, Seltzer was born Nov. 7, 1914, in Philadelphia.

His older brothers also worked in the industry — Frank N. Seltzer produced films in the 1940s and '50s and Julian Seltzer was an advertising director for Hal Roach Studios and 20th Century Fox. Both brothers died in their late 70s.

Growing up, Walter Seltzer worked as a theater usher before attending the University of Pennsylvania from 1932 through 1934.

He came to Hollywood in 1935 as a publicist for Fox West Coast Theaters

Moving to MGM in 1936, Seltzer helped craft the public image of such stars as Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, according to the 2004 book "Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars."

At a 1939 meeting, Howard Strickling, MGM's longtime head of publicity, told his 60-member staff that "through the generosity of the studio" they were all members of the motion picture academy, Seltzer later recalled.

"He had enrolled everyone and paid the initiation fee," Seltzer told the Associated Press in 2005. "There was general jubilation and thanks, then he proceeded to tell us how to vote." (With the decline of the studio system, bloc voting ended in the 1950s.)

After stints in the publicity departments at Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, Seltzer served in the Marines for four years during World War II.

After the war he spent nearly a decade as director of publicity at Hal Wallis Productions, where he met Heston, then embarking on a movie career.

Seltzer was versed in "the arcane mysteries" of the studio system, Heston wrote in his 1995 autobiography. "He was an intelligent, decent, and warmly witty man who, with his wife, Mickey, quickly became my first friends in Hollywood."

Tired of begging Wallis for what he later described as "five-dollar raises," Seltzer became publicity director for a production company formed by Lancaster and producer Harold Hecht.

At Pennebaker Productions, Brando's independent film company, Seltzer stepped firmly into producing. He made five films, including the 1959 drama "Shake Hands With the Devil" with James Cagney and "One-Eyed Jacks," a 1961 western starring Brando, who also directed.

Working with Brando had been an "interesting challenge" for Seltzer, Heston wrote in his autobiography.

"After some months of total inactivity, Walter urged Brando to pick one of the several projects the studio had optioned for him, so they could put it into production," Heston recalled.

"How can you talk about making a movie when we got 800,000 people starving in India?" replied Brando, ever the social activist.

Brando's company "died of inertia," Heston wrote, which freed Seltzer to produce the medieval drama "The War Lord," the first of seven films he made with Heston between 1965 and 1976.

Another Seltzer-Heston production was 1968's "Will Penny," "one of the best films on the cowboy/loner to come out of Hollywood," according to Leonard Maltin's "Movie Guide."

The partnership also produced "The Omega Man" (1971) and "Soylent Green" (1973), two films with the same subject at their core. They came about partly because the pair "thought that the greatest social problem of our time was overpopulation," Seltzer said in 2008 in the New York Sun. "We became a little obsessed with the idea."

Seltzer had no immediate survivors, Fagen said.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com

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