David Lyon Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
David Lyon
Acting
Biography
David Laurie Lyon (16 May 1941 – 7 June 2013) was a British stage, television, and film actor. Of Scottish descent, David Lyon was born in 1941 to Joe Lyon, a diamond merchant, and his wife Margaret. David spent much of his childhood in Sierra Leone where his father worked, before being sent home to be educated at Crofton House in Dumfriesshire in Scotland. He won a scholarship to Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, but was forced to leave education at the age of 16 when his father was declared bankrupt. He first worked in Glasgow for Royal Insurance, before moving south to England to work as a flooring salesman in Birmingham. At the age of 30 he decided to switch careers to acting. Lyon studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama as a mature student, and did not take paid acting work until 1975 at the Manchester Library Theatre. From 1976, he performed regularly for two decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company. With them, he appeared in plays which include: Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Henry VI, The Winter's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. With the RSC he also performed in several modern plays, including The Innocent (1979) and After Aida (1985–86). He also worked steadily in television after 1980, and in a few feature films as well. In 1983 he had a lead role as the newsreader in the feature film The Ploughman's Lunch, and was Lieutenant Colonel Vernon Erskine-Crum in the serial Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy. He was a cast member of the television series The Gemini Factor (1987), and was Commander Brian Huxtable in the BBC crime drama series Between the Lines (1992). In the original BBC version of the political thriller House of Cards (1990), he played the "thoroughly decent" Prime Minister Henry Collingridge, opposite Ian Richardson as the Machiavellian Francis Urquhart. He was also a familiar face on series such as The Bill, Lovejoy, Taggart, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Silent Witness, and Poirot. Lyon lived for many years with fellow RSC actor Zoë Wanamaker. He met his future wife Sandra Clark in 1975 at his first acting job at the Library Theatre in Manchester, but she was married to someone else at the time. In 1988 he encountered Clark again when they played Capulet and Lady Montague in Romeo and Juliet in Stratford-upon-Avon. They wed in 1989, and Lyon had two step-children from Clark's previous marriage.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Ping Pong
After restaurateur Sam Wong dies in a telephone booth after making a call, law clerk Elaine Choi is tasked with executing his will. In order for the will to be valid, it needs to be signed by its recipients, but Choi finds that each of them are reluctant to do so.
Tell Me That You Love Me
Laura Simms has an exciting job as a top magazine editor, but her love life's a disaster. Her luck seems to change when she meets Gabriel, a handsome but mysterious man who believes in old-fashioned love and marriage.
Reasonable Force
In times of civil unrest, crack police units like Inspector Maclntyre 's get the job of keeping order on the streets. But when a demonstrator dies after a riot, who will the public - and the Police Force itself - hold accountable?
Empire State
In the docklands of East London stands the Empire State, a nightclub full of magic and mystery. Designed like an ocean liner, it's become a battle ground where anything can happen. In the midst of the action, a young boy stows aboard to search for his friend who has disappeared in the entrails of the club.
The War That Never Ends
The Peloponnesian Wars (Athens versus Sparta for twenty-seven years) told in the format of news broadcast-like monologues by Theucydides, Plato, and others.
The Disappearance of Harry
Harry Webster (David Lyon) is an apparently normal husband and father who resides in contemporary Nottingham, England, which was once host to a flourishing textile industry. One day, Harry leaves his house and vanishes. A note he left behind alludes to a double life he no longer wishes to lead. His wife Liz (Annette Crosbie) conducts a search for her husband. Her findings raise a disturbing question: Did Harry have anything to do with a series of recent factory bombings?
Death Has a Bad Reputation
A British agent is chasing after famous terrorist Carlos when he resurfaces in Europe.
Defence of the Realm
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth.
Greenfingers
Prison inmate Colin Briggs is introduced to gardening, and when his thriving prison garden attracts the attention of flamboyant gardening expert Georgina Woodhouse, she offers to sponsor the inmates in an upcoming flower show. At the Hampton Court Flower Show, Colin meets Georgina's daughter and romance is in bloom.
The Price
Geoffrey Carr is a wealthy, key player in Britain's emerging computer industry, and newly married to Frances , a much younger woman, with wilful daughter Clare from a previous marriage. He'll do anything to make them happy, including stretching his finances to buy a Georgian estate in County Wicklow, where Frances grew up. Frank Crossan is an Irish Republican hitman on the run from British authorities. Seeking refuge with old girlfriend Kate, he creates a plan to kidnap a wealthy Brit for a ransom to fund a major arms deal. Their two worlds collide when Frances and Clare are brutally snatched away to a bleak hideaway and taken hostage. Geoffrey initially wants to cave in to the kidnapper's demands “ but nothing is simple when a personal crisis plays out against the forces of political intrigue, high finance and with the eyes of the media on them.