Norman Beaton

Known for ActingBorn 1934-10-31Died 1994-12-13Georgetown, Guyana

Norman Beaton was a popular and much loved Guyanese born British actor. He arrived in the UK in 1960 and worked as a calypso singer and musician and a teacher - being the first black teacher employed by the education authority in Liverpool. His heart set on a career in showbusiness, he moved to Bristol and became a presenter on the regional news magazine Points West, before a two week prison sentence curtailed his presenting career. He subsequently found work in London's West End, appearing in The Tempest as Ariel, a role he subsequently cited as the most important in his career. He helped set up the Black Theatre in Brixton in the mid 70s and broke into television with the first black British sitcom, The Fosters in 1976, playing Lenny Henry's father. A star turn in the movie Black Joy followed a year later, as did the principal role in the fledgling black soap Empire Road for the BBC. But it is perhaps his performance as Desmond Ambrose, the crotchety Peckham barber in Channel 4's hit sitcom Desmond's that Beaton will forever be remembered for. The series ran from 1988 until his ill health curtailed the show in 1994. He retired to Georgetown, the place of his birth, but collapsed and died of a heart attack at the airport on arrival, on 13th December 1994. He was 60 years old.Read more

Movies & web series

Black and White in Colour

Graceless Go I

Little Napoleons

Endgame

Empire Road

Nice

Desmond's

Busker's Odyssey

Hammer House of Horror

Minder

Big George Is Dead

Real Life

The Cosby Show

Playhouse

Dispatches

Black Joy

Sykes

Pressure

The Mighty Quinn

The Play on One

Playing Away

The Protectors

Dead Head

Rockliffe's Babies

The Fosters

Eureka

Black Christmas

Growing Pains

Up the Chastity Belt

When Love Dies

Airbase

Mark of the Hand

Rachel and the Roarettes

Easy Money

The Last Window Cleaner

In Sickness and in Health

A Man in the Zoo