Tom Georgeson, the accomplished character actor best known for his roles in the groundbreaking television dramas Boys from the Blackstuff and Between the Lines, has died at the age of 89.
Georgeson played Dixie Dean, a social security cheat and former foreman, in Alan Bleasdale's 1982 series Boys from the Blackstuff. The series, a follow-up to the 1980 play The Black Stuff, focused on a group of Liverpool tarmac layers struggling with unemployment during the Thatcher era. In the episode Moonlighter, Georgeson's character takes a job as a security guard while claiming dole money, only to be coerced into ignoring thefts from a docked ship.
Later, from 1992 to 1994, Georgeson played Detective Inspector Harry Naylor, a cockney sidekick in the Metropolitan Police's Complaints Investigation Bureau, in the series Between the Lines. The chain-smoking officer was initially principled but later became more pragmatic, and Georgeson added a personal touch by suggesting his character be a keen ballroom dancer to reveal his private side.
Born in Liverpool, the fourth of 11 children, Georgeson initially trained for the priesthood but changed course after 18 months in a Spanish seminary. After national service and a stint in Australia, where he taught and acted, he returned to Britain in 1965. He performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Laurence Olivier's National Theatre before embarking on a prolific television career that included appearances in Coronation Street and further collaborations with Bleasdale on Scully and GBH.
Georgeson is survived by his wife Primrose, an actor and ballet dancer, whom he married in 1962.
