Gary Holton (22nd September 1952 to 25th October 1985)

 

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…