Barry Foster

Pencil Portrait by Antonio Bosano.

Barry Foster Pencil Portrait
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The quality of the prints are at a much higher level compared to the image shown on the left.

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A3 Pencil Print-Price £20.00-Purchase

A4 Pencil Print-Price £15.00-Purchase

*Limited edition run of 250 prints only*

All Pencil Prints are printed on the finest Bockingford Somerset Velvet 255 gsm paper.

P&P is not included in the above prices.

Comments

Towards the end of his career – cut so tragically short by a fatal heart attack – Barry Foster lamented that he had never had a significant film career. “My trouble is that I’m not big or pretty enough to be an old-fashioned screen idol, nor am I small enough or bizarre enough to be one of the new lot.”

A new production of Van Der Valk starring Marc Warren is in the works and the current re-screening of the highly successful ITV drama series on Talking Pictures is a timely reminder of the bar set by Foster’s original interpretaion of the Dutch Commissaris. Fame had come comparatively late to the Nottingham born actor – he was forty five when the series first screened – yet his fifty year career was littered with highly commendable stage work, solid supporting roles in some high profile British films, in addition to a superb performance as the rapist/murderer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy.”

From the 1990s, Foster mainly performed on stage. He took on the role of Inspector Goole in J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls in a production directed by Stephen Daldry. In 2000 he starred as Prospero in The Tempest at Stafford Castle directed by Julia Stafford Northcote. From 2001–2002, he performed in a run of Yasmina Reza’s stage play ‘Art’ in London’s West End. Sadly, he would die on 11 February 2002 of a heart attack in his 75th year whilst at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, in Guildford in the county of Surrey, where he lived. A keen amateur jazz pianist, he can be seen exercising his musical “chops” in the “Van Der Valk” episode “Diane” (1977).

Recommended viewing

King and Country (1964)

The Gentle Spies (ITV Drama) 1965

https://archivetvmusings.blog/tag/barry-foster/

Robbery (1967)

Battle of Britain (1969)

Ryan's Daughter (1970)

Frenzy (1972)

Old Times (BBC Drama) 1975

A Quiet day in Belfast (1974)

Van Der Valk (ITV Series) 1972-92