Richard Marner

Richard Marner
Born	Alexander Pavlovich Molchanoff (1921-03-27)27 March 1921 Petrograd, Russian SFSR
Died	18 March 2004(2004-03-18) (aged 82) Perth, Scotland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1950–2002
Spouse	Pauline Pfarr ​ (m. 1947)​
Children	1
Relatives	Olga Novikoff (grandmother)

Richard Marner (born Alexander Pavlovich Molchanoff, Russian: Александр Павлович Молчанов, romanized: Aleksandr Pavlovič Molčanoff; 27 March 1921 – 18 March 2004) was a Russian-British actor. He was best known for his role as Colonel Erik von Strohm in the British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!.

Born in Petrograd (now St Petersburg), Russian SFSR, Molchanoff (nicknamed "Sasha" by his family) was the eldest son of Colonel Pavel Molchanoff, 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, author Olga Novikoff (known in the family as "Babushka London") lived in Harley Street.^[2]

After being educated at Monmouth School in Wales, Molchanoff 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 and successful career as an 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 appeared in an episode of Secret Army, the programme that 'Allo 'Allo! parodies.^[4][7]

An early TV role was his 1960 appearance in Danger Man in the first season episode entitled "The Girl in the Pink Pyjamas" as an anaesthetist.

His other work included roles in The Protectors (1973), Mackenzie (1980), Triangle (1981), Lovejoy (1994), and the film The Sum of All Fears (as the Russian president).^[8][4]

Marner starred as a disgruntled father in the Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial, starring the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.^[9]

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 an attempted coup, he stayed long enough to watch, through tearful eyes, the raising of the first Imperial Russian flag flown in Moscow since 1917.^[3]

Marner was fluent in Russian, English, French and German.^[1][10]

Marner married Pauline Pfarr in London in 1947.^[11] In 1958, the couple had a daughter together.^[12]

The couple first retired to Kentford, near Newmarket in Suffolk, before moving to a cottage in Perthshire in 2003.^[13]

Marner died on 18 March 2004 in Perth, Scotland, aged 82 from bronchopneumonia.^[3][10] Pfarr died on 21 May 2009, aged 91.

• Richard Marner at IMDb