George Silver owned a successful Oxford catering business and surprised everyone, including himself, by becoming a film star.

His distinctive looks – he was 22 stone and almost bald – earned him roles in films with some of the country’s leading actors and actresses.

He appeared in Gumshoe with Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw, playing a villainous drug addict, and was the chef in Murder on the Orient Express, with John Gielgud.

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He was also one of the baddies in a Gene Wilder film, Sherlock Holmes’s Smarter Brother, and was involved in other stage and TV work.

As one actor said: “He is not putting any members of Equity out of a job because he is such a completely unique type.”

His rise to screen stardom began when two film directors dined at the restaurant he was running in Liverpool.

He later recalled: “They flagged me down while I was driving my Daimler car. They had spotted me in my restaurant and had been chasing me for three days.

“They said they thought I had a marvellous personality and wanted to know if I was interested in taking part in a film.

“I had done some acting in my time – in the Army and a bit since – so I said yes. But I didn’t think they were serious and I certainly wasn’t.

Oxford Mail:

“It came as a big shock when the casting director of Columbia Pictures rang and asked me to go to London for an interview.

“I sat on a settee while these film people walked round looking at me and a photographer kept taking pictures.

Then the producer thanked me very much for coming. I thought – ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’. But a week later, they did call.”

Back in London, he met Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw and was shown the script for Gumshoe, in which his drug addict character dies after taking a drug overdose.

Mr Silver had come to Oxford in 1947 when he opened Long John’s restaurant in Hythe Bridge Street.

It was a name that stuck – he was known as ‘Long John’ to his friends.

He then ran the Regency restaurant in St Giles before branching out and setting up his own catering firm, Banquets of Oxford, whose clientele included Blenheim Palace and Silverstone racing circuit.

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His restaurant business was always his priority, but he clearly enjoyed his acting career which began when he was approaching 60. What’s more, he had no formal training for his stage and screen career.

He once said: “Before Gumshoe, they suggested I spent a week at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

“But my daughter was going there at the time and she said that if I went there too, she would leave. I was just told to act myself.”

Mr Silver, who lived in Charlbury Road, Oxford, died in 1984, aged 67.

Murder on the Orient Express came out in cinemas in 1974 and had a star-studded cast including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Sean Connery.

Anthony Perkins and Vanessa Redgrave were also in the film.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

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