My favourite comedy drama
series was Auf Wiedersehen Pet about
the ups and down of seven workers in various quandaries and countries. It
sprung from a simple idea from a bricklayer called Mick Connell and came to
life under genius pens of Dick Clement and Ian Le Franais.
The well-drawn characters and situations they found themselves in made it
plausible - no murders, hobbits, hair-raising car chases, aliens or computer
enhanced animation. Like a rock group things are never just the same when the
original line-up aren’t there and the first actor to die was Gary Holton who
played carpenter Wayne Norris. While in Wales I made an effort to pass through Welshpool to find the little marble box in which his ashes
are interred. Other fans/geeks of the show had visited so I knew from the
gradient of a hill where to look when I arrived at Maesgwastad
Cemetery.
I can remember him dying of a drug overdose in
the eighties when the show was into its second series but I didn’t know much
about him. Though his ashes are in Wales he was born in Clapham in South
London. Performing came early and from eleven to fourteen he worked in the
theatre world with the Sadler's Wells Opera Company and debuted in opera (but
hard to believe.) After leaving school he joined the Old Vic Theatre Company
and from there he went on to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company at
Stratford. By seventeen he joined the touring company of Hair and remained with them for two years. Away from acting he
fronted the rock band Heavy Metal Kids.
He was twenty-seven by the time he his acting
debut in a film called The Knowledge
(bit of a classic - he was in Quadrophenia too) and then started getting bit roles in the
odd television series (Minder, Bulman, Shoestring.) He met the scriptwriter Ian Le Franais and became Wayne Winston Norris in Auf Wiedershen Pet,
a thin fashion-conscious cockney. Wayne was a drinking womanising carpenter and
Gary wasn’t unlike this is real life. He’d enjoyed a string of relationships
and even been engaged by aged twenty-four (it was soon called off.) In 1979 he
was married to model Donna Campbell but it only lasted two years before the
separated. He had a relationship with model Susan Harrison and they had a son
but he was engaged to a hairdresser when he died.
On television he often looked pale, thin an unhealthy
due to drug use (he surmounted a heroin-addiction before the first series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet aired.) Sadly he
died of an overdose as series two was being filmed. The first series was
broadcast between 1983 and 1984 and was surprisingly successful. As in real
life nothing much happened but the mix of different characters being forced to
live and work together on a building site in Dusseldorf drew people’s interest.
Gary blew it though. He was found dead in his bed by his fiancée in October 1985,
his blood containing morphine diazepam and cannabis. The pathologist reported
the morphine level of 0.8 mg being the killer, 0.5 mg per litre being
considered the danger level.
He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in
London and his ashes were later placed here with his grandparents in Welshpool in Powys. Auf
Wiedersehen Pet grew over the years and Gary was there in spirit of his son
Wyman. It would have been better had Gary stayed clear of the drugs.
There’s a tribute site :
https://www.garyholtontribute.co.uk/
Here he is…
He wasn’t a rock star but died a
rock star’s death (overdose)…
The grave is in the bottom corner
(I’m stood by it)…
He looked like a rock dude but the
records didn’t do well…
Gary was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London…