Peter McNamara

Peter McNamara born in London and attended the National Youth Theatre and trained at LAMDA Possibly best known as Ralph Passmore the nemesis of Tucker Jenkins in Tuckers Luck 1983 the spin off series of Phil Redmonds Grange Hill 1978 Peter was known for his fantastic singing voice in many theatre musical productions including South Pacific He started out his long list of jobs as a supporting artist working on such films as Quadrophenia 1979 The Shining 1980 Chariots of Fire 1981 and Star Wars 1977 before being cast in Grange Hill 1978 He worked frequently with Christopher Menaul who cast him as a Chelsea skinhead Rory in The Treatment 1984 and previously Tuckers Luck 1983 He became a well respected character actor in a career that eventually spanned four decades he was often called upon to play the menacing hardman and when Denzel Washington came to London to work on For Queen Country 1988 Peter was asked to show him around and guide him on the Cockney accent In 1990 Peter starred as Kenno in the controversial football hooligan film Arrivederci Millwall 1990 one of the first films to tackle that subject He went onto play Jimmy Cadogan in the childrens TV series Oasis 1993 in 1993 and a spot on 991 1994 which reunited him with Arrivederci Millwall 1990 director Charles McDougall Despite his hardman roles Peter often played in a lot of comedy TV shows including Desmonds 1989 and Harry Enfield and Chums 1994 In 1995 he appeared in Funny Bones 1995 with Lee Evans Jerry Lewis Oliver Platt and Oliver Reed Then in 1996 he was seen in the series No Bananas 1996 as DS Howard He was in both the film and TV series of Londons Burning 1988 and played recurring roles in numerous other British TV shows including Thief Takers 1995 The Bill 1984 Trial Retribution 1997 Silent Witness 1996 and Casualty 1986 In 2002 he appeared as Frederick Michael Argyle in The Gathering 2002 where he acted alongside Christina Ricci Ioan Gruffudd and Stephen Dillane In 2004 he appeared in an extraordinary experimental drama documentary called Pissed on the Job 2004 Peter played a heavy drinker who was also a teacher the film which can be seen online is a great example of his work his subtle performance is extremely realistic in this damning piece about the dangers of alcohol He showed up as a vampire drug dealer in the film Dead Cert 2010 in 2010 and had been working on some low budget films in the latter years of his career that sadly never got released due to budget and various technical issues His last credit Dinklebrain 2012 was not the last film he made rumour has it that he was very much actively making some independent short films which hopefully will emerge in the near future Sadly Peter McNamara died in May 2018 at the age of 57 and he was cremated at Enfield Crematorium on 14th June 2018 a week after what would have been his 58th birthday IMDb Mini Biography By Shona M