Remembering British Sitcom Legend Geoffrey Palmer

By now you have probably heard the news that English character actor Geoffrey Palmer passed away last week at his home in Buckinghamshire, England. He was 93 years old. Best known to American audiences as Lionel Hardcastle in the beloved 90’s Britcom As Time Goes By, Mr. Palmer had a full and varied career even when he wasn’t appearing with his frequent co-star, Dame Judi Dench.

The son of a chartered accountant and a homemaker, the London-born Palmer went from school straight into the military at the end of the Second World War. He followed in his father’s accounting footsteps but was tempted by a girlfriend to give amateur theater a try.

His career progressed from regional stages to his West End debut in 1963. Though he worked on the stage with the likes of Sirs Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud during the next few decades, Palmer’s television career began to take off at this time and would prove to be the medium where he made the biggest impact.

His sonorous baritone, world-weary demeanor, and confessed fleshy visage made Palmer an immediately recognizable television actor. He made a career of playing rigid characters lacking in empathy and basically annoyed with the world. His role as cantankerous ex-army officer Jimmy Anderson in the mid-70’s sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was one such character which gained Palmer some notice.