The Biography

Peter Howell was an English actor of stage and screen. Despite his relatively privileged life (he was educated at Winchester and at Christ Church, Oxford, leaving the latter when called up for service as an officer in the Rifle Brigade during WWII) Howell was a lifelong active member of the Labour Party and campaigned for a number of social issues. One of his most remembered roles is that of the governor in Alan Clarke's 1979 film version of Scum, which he took because he wanted to highlight the issues regarding the penal system. He was also a longtime member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, and opposed their planned 1968-69 England cricket tour of apartheid-era South Africa, which was eventually cancelled. He helped to raise funds for the building of Watermans Arts Centre near his home in Chiswick, west London. Howell died at Denville Hall, a home for retired actors in Northwood, London, on 20 April 2015 after a short illness, aged 95