So farewell then William Simons

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The actor William Simons, best known for playing the amiably lazy Alf Ventress in Hearbeat, has died.

He gets a mention on this blog because he was one of the first two actors I saw live on stage. He and Eric Duffy played the Ugly Sisters in the Watford Palace's Christmas 1966 production of Cinderella.

I remember that it began with the two of them doing a silent comic scene on scooters - I had to be reassured that there was going to be talking.

Before that Simons was a child star. He played Dinah Sheridan and Anthony Steel's son in the films Where No Vultures Fly and West of Zanzibar. You can see the three of them in the photograph above.

His acting career was halted for a while by severe acne and he was later a patron of the charity Changing Faces.