Suitcased Memorabilia: Simon Ward

Tuesday, 05 December 1972 at the (now disappeared) Hoyts Cinema Centre in Bourke Street, my gal Judi Foley (looking very 70s in a maxi dress) and I (as a budding tennegar in purple flairs and burgundy platforms) attended the Australian Premiere of Richard Attenborough’s film ‘Young Winston”.

The film’s star British actor Simon Ward was present. Simon was was a British stage and film actor. He was known for his outstanding performance as the young Churchill in the 1972 film and for his roles as Sir Monty Everard in ‘Judge John Deed’ and as Bishop Gardiner in ‘The Tudors’

I remember I was really thrilled to meet and chat with him — certainly he was much more interesting and charming than the film itself.

Sadly, he died in 2012 of Polycythemia and looked more like the old Winston Churchill than the young one. Another talented life gone all too soon.