The Aphrodite Inheritance

Cast

David Collier

David Collier
(Peter McEnery)

Helene

Helene
(Alexandra Bastedo)

Charalambos

Charalambos
(Stefan Gryff)

EugeneHellman

Hellman
(Paul Maxwell)

Basileos

Basileos
(Brian Blessed)


Inspector Dimas - Godfrey James
Martin Preece - Tony Doyle
Eric Morrison - William Wilde
Olsen - Ray Jewers
Travis - Karl Held



Alexandra Bastedo Helene
(Alexandra Bastedo)

Alexandra Bastedo is best remembered for her role as Sharron Macready in the ITC action series The Champions. Drop dead gorgeous, Alexandra was perfectly cast as Helene. It took little imagination to accept that this was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Interviewed in 1994 she said "The Aphrodite Inheritance was lovely. The thing about The Champions was that it seemed as though we were all over the world, but of course we never went anywhere, we were just on the Elstree lot. For The Aphrodite Inheritance we went to Cyprus, which is a place that I love very much, and obviously to film on location is far more exciting. I got on very well with Peter McEnery, and indeed with Stefan Gryff and Brian Blessed, we had a lot of fun."

"When you are away on location with a group of actors, you do socialize. In that sense, although The Aphrodite Inheritance took less time than The Champions, it could probably be said that I got to know everyone much better. The whole process took about six months."

Alexandra also recalled them having to change hotels. "Peter and I, as the romantic leads, needed our sleep desperately in order not to have dark rings under our eyes in the morning. The first hotel they put us in was so noisy that we actually couldn't get any sleep, and we both requested that we move elsewhere, even to somewhere less luxurious, just so that we got the number of hours sleep necessary to look reasonable."

Alexandra remained friendly with the Bird's after the series and spent a lot of time with them before her marriage to theatrical producer and director Patrick Garland. Garland died in April 2013 and, sadly, Alexandra outlived him by only a few months. It was reported she died peacefully and unexpectedy on Sunday 12th January 2014 after a long battle against cancer.

The Alexandra Bastedo website - http://www.alexandra-bastedo.com/ is a great tribute to her life and work.

Peter McEnery searches e-Bay and opens the results in a new window The Moonspinners comicbook adaptation 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.
Blessed was joined on location by his wife, actress Hildegard Neil and their daughter.

Paul Maxwell

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 quite engaging. Hellman was also a sharp operator. He was the first to realise the truth about Helene and her companions.

Charalambos
(Stefan Gryff) Stefan Gryff

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 '60s 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 had fond memories of filming the series and said Peter McEnery, Brian Blessed and he became good friends.

Sadly Stefan Gryff died on 3rd June 2017. Following his death Neil Hendry asked website visitor Chris Williams to write an obituary for the Ian Hendry website. Chris says he did a lot of research but found very little information. Later, he decided to dig a little deeper. You can download a PDF of Chris's chilling account.

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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 .

Supporting Cast

Karl Held

As The Aphrodite Inheritance unfolded, the cast began increasingly 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 Paul Maxwell, Stefan Gryff and Godfrey James, Aphrodite saw the return of Karl Held, "Phil Mervish" from The Lotus Eaters , (pictured left) as Travis, one of Hellman's heavies.

Stuntman Barry Halliday with his stunt double

Barry Halliday played David Collier's ill-fated brother, whose death sparks off the whole story. Although Halliday was a stuntman clearly even he wasn't going to take that fall and he shared the role with a rather scarey looking stunt double (pictured right).


Tony Doyle as Martin Preece
The duplicitous Martin Preece was played by Irish actor Tony Doyle (pictured left), best known to television audiences as Brian Quigley, the scheming local businessman in the late 1990s BBC television drama series Ballykissangel.
Doyle died suddenly in January 2000 at the age of 57, a great loss.


The luckless Eric Morrison - one of the conspirators who plans to loot Aphrodite's tomb - was played by William Wilde. Wilde (pictured right) was a familiar face in British TV drama throughout the '60s and '70s appearing in countless BBC drama series. On ITV he had played Dr Brook in Emergency Ward 10 in the mid '60s and he made guest appearances in numerous ITC drama series (The Saint, Department S et al).

During the filming of The Aphrodite Inheritance Michael Bird became friendly with Wilde, and early in 1979 the pair corresponded almost daily about an idea of Wilde's for a series Dodger based on the Oliver Twist character - the Artful Dodger. It failed to materialise.

Over the years I have tracked down many of the actors who appeared in Bird's creations, with varying degrees of success. I am indebted to website visitor Chris Williams for pointing me in the direction of Mr Wilde, who these days runs Hornets of Kensington - a high class London gentleman's outfitters.

There is a difference of opinion on the (uncredited) Cypriot girl who plays Georgia (left), who David Collier at first tries to avoid, but ends up dancing with (while fantasising about Helene) at Hellman's party in episode six. Website visitor Natalia Tzenou told me she thought it was actor Rena Kosmidou. Rena Kosmidou However Cyprus born TV and film director Agis Paikos says "... the girl in question was not an actress at all but a beauty queen, crowned 'Star Cyprus' in 1976. Her name is Georgia Gheorghiou (she is referred to by her real name "Georgia" at the party scene).

I am also indebted to Paikos for identifying a number of veteran Greek Cypriot stage actors who participated in the series, since many of them went uncredited: Theodoulos Moreas (dubbed) as the priest reading the eulogy in episode one, the late Andreas Moustras as the doctor in the morgue scene, Nicos Shiafkalis as the waiter in episode two, his (then) wife, Joanna Shiafkalis, appears (uncredited) in episode four at the wedding scene. (She is the blonde young woman in the striped dress holding the little boy that Peter McEnery lifts in his arms), Costas Demetriou as Antonis appears in episodes four and five, the late Charalambos (Pambos) Xoufarides as the policeman in episode five, Nikias Nicolaides as the Police Sergeant in episode six and George Zenios as Professor Stylianou in episodes seven and eight.


Michael J Bird Tribute Website

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