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Article: TOM BELL ; Actor with an air of menace
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- October 7, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Playing sinister characters with an air of understated menace
became Tom Bell's stock-in-trade after he made his name in the 1962
"kitchen sink" film drama The L-Shaped Room as the brooding, bitter,
young writer Toby, who falls for the pregnant, unmarried Frenchwoman
played by Leslie Caron.
There were predictions of a great future for the lean, gaunt-
faced actor - once described by the television critic Clive James as
"reeking of bad diet" - following his performance in the ground-
breaking film based on Lynne Reid Banks's best-selling novel.
But such forecasts were reined in when the actor's single-
mindedness and antiestablishment nature led him to heckle the Duke
of Edinburgh at the ...