Willoughby Goddard

Apr 17 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

THE deep, self-righteous tone of his voice suggested trickles of pig fat rolling down the jowls – or maybe that image came from his mountainous body quivering with rage and indignation on hearing from some grovelling toady that his quarry had escaped certain death yet again.

The quarry, of course, was William Tell, a 14th-century Robin Hood with a yodel, who was battling to free his fellow Swiss from the yoke of Austrian tyranny, as represented by the fat man, Landburgher Gessler, played by Willoughby Goddard.

In the Adventures of William Tell (ITV, 1958/59), our hero, played by Conrad Phillips, first stirs Gessler’s wrath by successfully dodging a death sentence when he shoots an arrow through the apple on the head of his son Walter (Richard Rogers).

For the next 38 episodes, Tell and his son romp through the Swiss Alps (actually Snowdonia) pursued by Gessler’s men, who collide with each other after the slightest feint, much to the chagrin of their magnificent leader.

Some thought Gessler’s tyranny was loosely based on Adolf Hitler’s cruel and bumptious gauleiters. But most schoolboys thought that William Tell was at least as good as Robin Hood, with crossbows instead of longbows.

Goddard was a fine actor, capable of unction and pumped-up majesty, who settled for fat parts, giving them great zest.

Born in Bicester, he began acting with the Oxford Playhouse in the 1940s. During his subsequent stage career, he played the grand theatres of London, cast in appropriate roles in Dickens and Shakespeare – Toby Belch in Twelfth Night being an obvious example.

Another TV success was the 16-episode The Mind of JG Reeder (1969 and 1971). It was based on Edgar Wallace’s stories and Goddard was Sir Jason Toovey, head of the Department of Public Prosecutions.

On stage, he was wonder- ful as Cardinal Wolsey in Robert Bolt’s The Man for All Seasons. In the 1963 Broad- way version of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! he was, predictably enough, a girthful Bumble.

A TV interpretation of Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue (Channel 4, 1987) provided Goddard with another splendid part, Professor Siblington, and he sank like a rich pudding into the malice, gossip and excess of life in a famous university college.

For some 40 years, Goddard, married with a son, was the fat man, but he played it with style and skill.

Willoughby Goddard, actor; born March 24, 1926, died April 11, 2008.