John Howard Davies Trailers
The Good Life: Inside Out TrailerAll About The Good Life TrailerNot Again: Not the Nine O'Clock News Trailer
John Howard Davies (born Paddington, London; 9 March 1939 — 22 August 2011) was a British television director, producer and former child actor.
Davies was the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies. His credits as a child actor include the title role in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948), The Rocking Horse Winner (1949), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951) and a few episodes of the television series William Tell (1958).
After school at Haileybury, further education at Grenoble and National Service in the Royal Navy, he started working in the City in a finance company. After that, he trained as a carpet salesman but quit after six months to travel the world. Ending up in Australia he returned to acting and met his wife Leonie when they both appeared in The Sound of Music. Back in Britain, he tried selling oil to industry in Wembley and then became a production assistant in the BBC at the end of 1968.
Davies is best known for his adult career as director and producer of several highly successful British sitcoms, including All Gas and Gaiters, Fawlty Towers (series 1), The Goodies, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Good Life, No Job for a Lady and Mr. Bean. Davies was also the producer and director of the sketch show The World of Beachcomber and the earliest episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He also directed several episodes of The Vicar of Dibley.
He became the BBC's Head of Comedy from 1977-1982, then head of Light Entertainment and finally Controller Managing Director of EMI Television Productions and the Head of Light Entertainment at ITV broadcaster Thames Television. During the last role, he was cited by the popular press as the man who 'sacked' comedian Benny Hill when the station decided not to renew his contract after 20 years' service.
Most Popular John Howard Davies Trailers
Total trailers found: 17
01 January 2007
A look at the careers of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam in the years after Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).
28 June 1948
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice.
16 May 1984
A friendly street kid in India, during the last years of the nineteenth century, looks and considers himself Indian, but is in fact a Brit.
14 April 1979
An enraged detective's wife kills her husband by smashing in his skull with a heavy blunt instrument - but no murder weapon can be found, and the police are baffled.
17 March 1995
Mr. Bean takes his girlfriend to see Britain's famous ice skating duo Torvill and Dean perform in Manchester.
11 May 1987
A group of friends take refuge in an island hotel decorated for New Year's. The problem is, it's early summer, and soon enough, even the walls themselves are striking out against them.
29 December 2010
What was it really like behind the scenes of The Good Life? With contributions from Richard Briers, Penelope Keith, Monty Don, Brian Sewell and John O'Farrell.
30 November 1949
A strange and tragic tale of a young boy who is able to predict race winners at the horse track by riding his own rocking horse to aid his parents out of their endless round of debts.
01 January 1952
Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green.
29 August 1986
A program originally produced for the BBC, and aired on television several times in 1986. Originally conceived as a long-form promotional piece for «Press to Play», the BBC staffer (Richard Skinner) persuades Macca to talk about much more, including one of the more in-depth interviews about Wings.
10 May 2009
30 years after Fawlty Towers (1975) ended, Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about the making of this classic sitcom.
28 December 2009
A look behind the scenes of satirical sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News.
17 April 1951
In 1830s England, Tom Brown attends a rugby boys' school, where his moral and personal growth is formed through friendship, bullying–particularly from the cruel Flashman–and the influence of headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold.
04 September 1991
Rowan Atkinson stars in another comic creation; Mr Bean a mute oddball who trips in and out of chaos and mayhem including; 'The Curse of Mr Bean' and 'Mr Bean Goes to Town' plus the episode 'The Bus Stop'.
28 October 2025
Documentary celebrating 50 years of The Good Life.
08 May 1990
Documentary about the life and career of actress Diana Dors, Britain's own "Blonde Bombshell".
03 October 1983
46-year-old Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is suffering a midlife crisis and tries to escape his dreary life.
