David Daker, the veteran character actor best known for his role as Harry Crawford in the ITV comedy-drama series Boon, has died at the age of 90.
Daker's portrayal of Harry Crawford, the entrepreneurial friend of Ken Boon (played by Michael Elphick), became a defining part of the show, which ran for seven series from 1986 to 1992 and a final episode in 1995. The series, set initially in Birmingham and later Nottingham, drew audiences of up to 15 million. Its theme song, Hi Ho Silver, performed by Jim Diamond, became a Top 10 hit in 1986.
In one notable episode, Boon and Crawford are locked in a security vault after interrupting a robbery, reminiscing about their fire service days and pondering the meaning of life. The duo later establish CBS (Crawford Boon Security), and their on-screen bond was central to the show's appeal.
Early television success came with a run of over 80 episodes in the BBC drama Z Cars, where Daker played PC Owen Culshaw from 1967 to 1968.
He described the character as 'a rather colourless character.' Daker went on to appear in beloved sitcoms such as Only Fools and Horses and Porridge, as well as in Coronation Street and Doctor Who.
Born on 29 September 1935 in Bilston, in the Black Country, Daker was the youngest of five children of Olive (née Cutler) and Elijah Daker, a shoe factory worker. He discovered his performing talents early, recalling at infant school playing a cow and enjoying the laughter and applause. At age 13, he played Long John Silver in a school production of Treasure Island at Etheridge (now Moseley Park) secondary school.
Despite his parents' wish for a steady job, he trained as a draughtsman for two years before quitting, announcing he was finished with a nine-to-five life. He then joined the Oxford Playhouse Theatre School, completed national service in the RAF, and gained experience with Oldham Rep as a stage manager, actor, and director from 1957 to 1960.
During a long stint at Salisbury Playhouse from 1960 to 1965, Daker starred as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1964.
He later performed at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham (1965), the Everyman in Cheltenham (1965-67), and the Castle in Farnham (1970). His London debut came as Hephaestus in Prometheus Bound at the Mermaid Theatre in 1971.
An audition with director Lindsay Anderson led to roles at the Royal Court Theatre (1971-72). He then appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, playing Shokhin in The Zykovs, Chuck in The Iceman Cometh (both 1976), and Reg Drummond in Privates on Parade (1977).
He returned to the West End in Saint Joan at the Strand (now Novello) Theatre in 1994, with Imogen Stubbs in the title role. David Murray of the Financial Times wrote: 'As Warwick’s testy chaplain, De Stogumber, David Daker for once makes the real voice of Bernard Shaw heard. A plain, thick Englishman, he fulminates and blusters vengefully, but when the chips go down he is overcome with simple horror.'
On television, Daker took numerous roles in both dramas and comedies.
After Z Cars, his RAF experience was useful for a part in the 1975 TV version of Arnold Wesker's Chips With Everything. He played the brutal miner husband in The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd (1976), based on a D.H. Lawrence story, and the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess in Holocaust (1978).
In the adventure series Dick Turpin (1979-82), he played the highwayman's former army nemesis, Captain Nathan Spiker. He appeared in Only Fools and Horses in 1982 as Tommy Mackay, the violent estranged husband of a woman dating Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), leading to a fight with Del Boy (David Jason). Earlier, in a 1977 episode of Porridge, he was involved in a brawl with Godber (Richard Beckinsale).
Daker had two roles in Coronation Street: as Basil Griffin (1968-69), whose wife leaves him for an uninterested Len Fairclough, and Gordon Lewis, an unpopular relief manager at the Rovers Return in three stints between 1981 and 1985. He also appeared twice in Doctor Who, as the 13th-century robber baron Irongron in The Time Warrior (1973-74) and spacecraft commanding officer Rigg in Nightmare of Eden (1979).
He played classical roles in BBC Shakespeare productions of King Henry VI and Richard III (both 1983), and Brother Benjamin in the second series of the Salvation Army sitcom Hallelujah! (1984), alongside Thora Hird. Later, he starred in the BBC drama Crown Prosecutor (1995) as Ben Campbell, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service.
In films, he played the father of the boy in Time Bandits (1981) and the police desk sergeant in I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990), with Elphick as his boss.
Daker married Stella Newton in 1957; they later divorced and had a son, Tim, and a daughter, Pippa, who died of multiple sclerosis in 1997.
In 1998, Daker was found guilty of assault over a parking dispute, but magistrates gave him a conditional discharge, accepting he was under stress. He is survived by his second wife, Hilary (née Voisey), their daughter, Rebecca, his son, Tim, and a sister, Hazel. Colin David Daker was born on 29 September 1935 and died on 30 April 2026.
