Paul Darrow was born on 2 May 1941 in Surrey, England. He went to Haberdashers Askes School and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He performed with the Bristol Old Vic and started to get acting roles on British TV in the 1960s. After roles in such series' as _"The Saint" .
He appeared in 51 of the 52 episodes of "Blakes 7" , more than anyone other than Michael Keating. The only episode in which he did not appear was the pilot, "Blakes 7" {The Way Back } .
In 2003, he, Andrew Mark Sewell, and Simon Moorhead formed a consortium called B7 Enterprises that had acquired the rights acquired the rights to "Blakes 7" from Terry Nation s widow. The plan was to revive the show as a mini-series, starring Darrow in his original role as Avon, but due to disagreements about the direction of the show, he has since left the consortium.
He was considered for the roles of Caine, Dr, Armstrong, Bukovsky Lamson and Kelly and other roles in Lifeforce .
He was interviewed for a part in The Bounty .
Has acted in both the James Bond franchise and the Doctor Who franchise.
He played different parts in two different "Doctor Who" serials - Captain Hawkins in "Doctor Who and the Silurians" and Maylin Tekker in "Timelash". He was also considered for many guest roles in the series - Persuasion in "Four to Doomsday", Captain Stapley in "Time-Flight", Valgard in "Terminus", Bulic in "Warriors of the Deep", Lytton in "Resurrection of the Daleks", and Arak in "Vengeance on Varos".
Had his legs removed in in 2015 because of an operation.
He stars as the cynical character Kaston Iago in the Magic Bullets Kaldor City audio series.
He originally auditioned for the part of Blake in "Blakes 7" , and was later recommended for the role of Avon by Vere Lorrimer.
In 2004 he was the subject of the fourth volume of MJTVs "The Actor Speaks" audio CDs, featuring frank interviews and dramatic pieces, alongside guest Peter Miles , with a piece specifically written by Tanith Lee.
He is a huge fan of cinema. As a teenager, according to some interviews, he spend a lot of his time in the cinema, and usually stayed there until his mother phoned the usherette to send him home for tea.
In an Interview by Karen Davies and Paul Winter at the Cult TV festival in October 2003, he revealed that he wasnt really interested in science fiction until he met Isaac Asimov. Reading one of his books sparked his interest in the genre.
In 2012, he returned to the role of Kerr Avon in Big Finish Productions Blakes 7: The Liberator Chronicles, a series of dramatic readings which take place during Series One before the death of Olag Gan. Darrow stars as Avon in The Turning Test and The Magnificent Four by Simon Guerrier and Counterfeit by Peter Anghelides.
He performed all his own stunts in "Blakes 7" . He thinks he must have been mad, because a lot of them were quite dangerous.
He was known as a "Kiss of Death" to a lot of actresses, since no female character he kissed in "Blakes 7" had ever survived the episode.
He got his first cigarette from his uncle. He was five.
He is well known to be accident-prone with props, especially with his guns on the set of "Blakes 7" . In fact, he broke so many of them, the team built a special gun with an aluminium core for him. Paul suspects that the transfer to a more solid weapon model in later seasons resulted from his accidents.
His favourite music artists include Elvis Presley , Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan.
He records voiceovers and straplines for UK Jack FM station in Oxfordshire.
He is the author of Avon: A Terrible Aspect, a 1989 novel about Avons father and Avons own early life. Darrows autobiography, Youre Him, Arent You? was published in 2006. Darrow narrated the 2008 audio book of Terry Nation s classic childrens story Rebeccas World, Journey to the Forbidden Planet.
His real surname is Birkby. When an agent advised him to change it to a more easily recognisable and pronounceable one, his father suggested the name Darrow, after the American attorney Clarence Darrow.
He admitted in a 2004 BBC interview that he was hooked on "Footballers Wives" , and he would have liked to be in it.
He played the role of Samuel Vimes in the 1998/9 touring production of the play based on Terry Pratchett s Discworld novel "Guards! Guards!".
He starred as Elvis Presley in the West End stage musical "Are You Lonesome Tonight?".
His nickname on the set of "Blakes 7" was "Blint", because he was thought to be a mixture of Burt Lancaster and Clint Eastwood.
The difference between the United Kingdom and the United States is that,in the United Kingdom, a hundred miles is a long distance; in the,United States, a hundred years is a long time.
It costs nothing to be kind.
