Peter Gilmore, who has died aged 81, starred in the long-running BBC seafaring drama The Onedin Line which attracted Sunday night audiences of millions in the 1970s.
Between 1971 and 1980 his portrayal of the mutton-chopped Victorian shipowner James Onedin offered a welcome weekly escape from reality during a period of economic gloom. With its stirring theme tune — the majestic Adagio from Khachaturyan’s ballet Spartacus — the series followed the precarious fortunes of a family-run Liverpool shipping line in the second half of the 19th century.
At first The Onedin Line made little impact, and it was only midway through the second series in 1972 that the ratings suddenly soared to 12 million viewers a week. “Gilmore’s fan mail leapt to mammoth proportions,” one critic reported. “Women, he discovered, seem to fall for hard and heartless men.”
As the ruthlessly ambitious, handsome young captain of the decrepit three-masted schooner Charlotte Rhodes, Gilmore certainly caught the determined, dogged spirit of the age of sail just as steam began contending for ocean-going supremacy. The series tracked James Onedin’s professional and personal ups-and-downs — not least his various romantic entanglements which, with the character’s rugged, freebooting style, charmed a large contingent of female viewers.
Men, on the other hand, while acknowledging Gilmore’s gruff appeal, were enthralled as much by the sight of the Charlotte Rhodes under full sail on an open blue sea as they were by Gilmore’s alluring co-stars, among them Onedin’s bewitching sister Elizabeth (Jessica Benton).
In 1993 Gilmore visited post-Ceaucescu Romania, where The Onedin Line — a saga of capitalist enterprise — was the most popular show on television. He was feted with all the trappings of a state visit, whisked around in black limousines. The authorities in Bucharest, who had reportedly bought the series from the BBC for just £40, screened repeat after repeat.
In all, the show was sold to 70 countries. President Tito of Yugoslavia used to rearrange the national television schedules so that he could catch up with it before bed.
The son of a commercial traveller, John Peter Gilmore was born on August 25 1931 in Leipzig, but from the age of six was brought up at Nunthorpe, a suburb of Middlesbrough. Educated at the Friends’ School in nearby Great Ayton, he left at the age of 14 to work in a factory in London. After National Service in the Army, he enrolled in 1952 at Parada, a preparatory course for Rada; he lasted for two terms before being expelled — “mainly, I suspect, because I was no good”.
Gilmore began his stage career as a vocalist, appearing with the George Mitchell Singers in summer seasons with Harry Secombe and the comedian Al Read. Between 1954 and 1956 he played in the popular Crazy Gang revue Jokers Wild (Victoria Palace). From the mid-1950s he also made television commercials in Germany, Ireland and the United States.
After working in provincial stage productions, with occasional London dates, stardom beckoned in 1958 when he was cast as Freddy Eynsford Hill in the West End production of My Fair Lady (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane). At the last minute, however, he was replaced because he was a baritone and the score called for a tenor.
His big television break came the same year in the ITV series Ivanhoe, in which he worked with the executive producer Peter Rogers, later to develop the Carry On comedy canon. Gilmore made several appearances in Carry On films, including Carry On Jack (1963) and Carry On Cleo (1964), both of which afforded him seaborne roles, as well as Carry On Up The Khyber (1968) and Carry On Henry (1971).
He also appeared in the ghoulish British horror film The Abominable Doctor Phibes (also 1971) as well as in several West End musical stage successes such as Lock Up Your Daughters (Mermaid, 1962) and The Beggar’s Opera (Apollo, 1968), in which Gilmore, as the highwayman Macheath, was praised for his “spirited voice and handsome presence”.
On television he made appearances in popular television drama series such as The Persuaders, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Heartbeat. In 1984 he played Chief Orderly Brazen in the four-part Doctor Who story Frontios.
Peter Gilmore married, in 1958, the actress Una Stubbs, who was in the chorus of My Fair Lady. Their marriage was dissolved in 1969, and the following year he married Jan Waters, with whom he starred in The Beggar’s Opera on stage and on television.
After they divorced in 1976 he lived with Anne Stallybrass, who also played his wife in The Onedin Line; they married in 1987. She and an adopted son from his first marriage survive him.
Peter Gilmore, born August 25 1931, died February 3 2013
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