Cast

Alexandra has an excellent website of her own - http://www.alexandra-bastedo.com/. It is well worth a visit.

David Collier
(Peter McEnery)

Sixties teen heart-throb, Peter McEnery, made a reasonable leading man although we never really get to know his character. Mourning the death of his brother to begin with, he is withdrawn and uncommunicative. As events unfold he alternates between disbelief and bemusement, but we never seem to get deep into Collier to discover what makes him tick.

McEnery recalls "a very pleasant sojourn in Cyprus which made the whole project worthwhile" and Stefan Gryff says that McEnery, Brian Blessed and he spent a lot of time together and became good friends.

Interestingly years before McEnery had starred opposite Hayley Mills in a Disney film called The Moon-Spinners, which was filmed on Crete in and around Elounda and Aghios Nikolaos (the locations for Bird's previous two series) and had featured shady goings on involving a wealthy Yacht owner not unlike the situation in The Aphrodite Inheritance.

Basileos
(Brian Blessed)

Brian Blessed was … well Brian Blessed! With the possible exception of Oliver Reed it would be difficult to imagine anyone else playing the hard-drinking, womanising, larger than life Basileos, extolling the virtues of wine drinking to anyone who'll listen.

Eugene Hellman
(Paul Maxwell)

Wealthy antiquities collector Eugene Hellman was played by Paul Maxwell - "Sam Webber" from The Lotus Eaters . Maxwell was born in Canada in 1921 and became a naturalised American. He had a moderately successful career in Hollywood, but wanted to do stage work as well, which meant working on Broadway and a life split between New York and California. In December 1959 he took a calculated risk and moved to London - where he could combine the two careers. By the time he came to do The Lotus Eaters Maxwell was one of a handful of actors who had cornered the market playing "Americans" on British television. To a whole TV generation he was "Steve Tanner" the GI who married Coronation Street's Elsie Tanner. He also, famously, provided the voice for Steve Zodiac in the puppet series Firebal XL5. Maxwell died in 1991.

Eugene Hellman was a complex character: ruthless and undoubtedly shady but with integrity and a sense of honour, and Maxwell played him with an amiable charm that made him an engaging character. Hellman was also a sharp operator. He was the first to realise the truth about Helene and her companions.

Born in Warsaw in 1939, Stefan Gryff emigrated in 1957 with his parents to Australia, where he finished school and became a British subject. Gryff studied law at the University of Sydney and practised criminal law for a time but his real interest lay in acting and he came to London in 1965 to join Brian Rix's Whitehall Theatre Company. Gryff appeared on BBC television in the late 60's in a number of the Whitehall farces.

Gryff had starred in both Bird's previous BBC serials: The Lotus Eaters (1972-3) and Who Pays The Ferryman? (1977). He had also appeared in "Safe Conduct", one of two episodes Michael Bird wrote for the BBC drama series Quiller, broadcast in November 1975. The two men had become friends and when The Aphrodite Inheritance came along Gryff was happy to be working once more with Bird.

The part of Charalambos was very different to the philosophical policeman persona Gryff had built up, and to ensure complete dissociation in the minds of the viewer he insisted on wearing a heavy black wig. He has fond memories of filming the series and says Peter McEnery, Brian Blessed and he became good friends.

In any case, any hope we may have had of encountering "Colonel" Krasakis, his jurisdiction miraculously extended as far as Cyprus, disappeared when we were introduced to Inspector Dimas. Continuing the tradition of Michael Bird's "philosophical policemen", Dimas was level-headed, sensible and given to learned pronouncements, although he had a much shorter fuse than Krasakis. He was played by Godfrey James, an old friend of the writer, who six years earlier had played "Nicholson" the sinister, uncompromising British spy in The Lotus Eaters .

As The Aphrodite Inheritance unfolded, the cast began to resemble a "Michael J Bird repertory company". Once Bird found an actor he liked he tended to write for them again. In addition to Maxwell, Gryff and James, Aphrodite saw the return of Karl Held, "Phil Mervish" The Lotus Eaters , as Travis, one of Hellman's heavies.

Website visitor Natalia Tzenou tells me the (uncredited) Cypriot character actress who plays Georgia (right), who David Collier at first tries to avoid, but ends up dancing with (while fantasising about Helene) at Hellman's party is Rena Kosmidou.

Natalia says "as I recall, she did a number of softcore erotic films back in the 70s. One of them, which is characterised as a criminal drama, was shot in 1973 and called "Oi erotomaneis" (i.e. "the sexmaniacs" in Greek). And coincidentally one of the characters, a rape victim, is played by none other than Betty Arvaniti, aka Annika Zeferis or Ismini Christoyannis in two of Michael Bird's other creations."