Tintin Forums

Sadly, barely three weeks after the death of Georges Wilson, the world has lost another memorable Captain Haddock.

Lionel Jeffries, who played the Captain in the second series of the BBC radio adaptations, as well as the Christmas Special, has died in a nursing home in Poole in Dorset.

He may be better known as Grandpa Potts in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but he was a prolific actor and director, with a long career on stage and screen, and he could portray both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters with apparent ease.

There are many obituaries for him, of which these are a few:

The BBC
The Guardian
The New York Times
Broadway World
The Daily Telegraph

Oh no, really sad times. Lionel Jeffries was a fantastic actor and brilliant in so many films like Chitty. He was getting pretty good for his age too.

(He was younger than Dick Van Dyke too)

Will miss the baritone voice :(

Rest in peace.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately for him, he definitely looked older than his years, and was playing character parts that might normally have been given to a much older actor for all of his career; however, this he did extremely well, being as effective at drama as he was at comedy, especially in the latter when called on to exhibit (usually misplaced) dignity in the face of (inevitable) calamity, such as in The Wrong Arm of the Law, with Peter Sellers.


Yes indeed! And not just as Haddock - who could forget Grandpa Potts', "...And the big brown bear came lolloping over the mountain..."?