Richard Marner

Born in Petrograd, Russia, Molchanov (nicknamed "Sasha" by his family) was the eldest son of Colonel Pavel Molchanov, of the Semyonovsky Regiment, one of two that were set up for children of children who had played with Peter the Great of Russia.[1] In 1924, his entire family left the Soviet Union and went to Finland and then Germany, before ending up in Britain and London, where Alexander's grandmother, Olga Novikov (known in the family as "Babushka London") lived in Harley Street.[2]

After being educated at Monmouth School in Wales, Molchanov became an assistant to the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing, where he performed at Covent Garden.[2] During World War II he joined the RAF, and was posted to South Africa with the Air Training Corps.[1] After being invalided out, he changed his name to Richard Marner and began his long successful career as a stage and film actor.[2]

One of Marner's early stage roles – as Dracula, with Howard Dean – is still regarded by some as the definitive interpretation of the role.[3] In 1967, well before his role as the German Colonel in 'Allo 'Allo Marner played the minor and uncredited role of a German sentry in the classic war film The Dirty Dozen.[4] His other films include Ice Cold in Alex, The One That Got Away, The Password Is Courage, You Only Live Twice, The Boys from Brazil, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The African Queen and the Swiss film Four in a Jeep, in which he did all the Russian dialogue.[5] He was also in the television movie Birth of the Beatles, as Bruno Koschmider.[6]

Marner's best known role was in 'Allo 'Allo! as German Commandant Colonel Kurt Von Strohm.[1] He appeared in all nine series of the programme between 1984 and 1992.[2] He also appears in an episode of Secret Army, the programme that 'Allo 'Allo parodies.[4][7]

His other work included roles in Mackenzie (1980), Triangle (1981), Lovejoy (1994), and the film The Sum of All Fears (as the Russian president).[8][4]

In 1991, when the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, convened a "Congress of Compatriots" (an olive branch to some of the post-1917 White Russian diaspora), Marner was one of the 600 people who returned to the motherland. Despite being caught up in a coup, he stayed long enough to watch, through tearful eyes, the raising of the first Imperial Russian flag flown in Moscow since 1917.[3]