Ronald Allen

Who was Ronald Allen?

Ronald John Allen was an English character actor who achieved the status of a soap opera star.

Allen was born in Reading, Berkshire. He studied at Leighton Park School in Reading and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, worked in repertory theatre, had a season at the Old Vic, London and made several films, including the classic about the sinking of the Titanic A Night to Remember.

After roles in the BBC soaps Compact and United! came his best remembered famous role, in the long-running Crossroads. Allen played David Hunter, who was a shareholder of the Crossroads Motel with Meg Mortimer, Tish Hope and Bernard Booth. He also twice appeared as a lead actor in the science fiction programme Doctor Who, in the stories The Dominators and The Ambassadors of Death.

Allen also made a number of guest appearances in The Comic Strip Presents. In the first episode, Five Go Mad in Dorset, which spoofed Enid Blyton's The Famous Five stories, he makes a surprise appearance as Uncle Quentin; deliberately sending up his staid image, he most memorably told The Famous Five, "Your Aunt Fanny is an unrelenting nymphomaniac – and I am a screaming homosexual"..