Personal life

Palmer was born in London and attended Highgate School. He is the son of Norah Gwendolen (née Robins) and Frederick Charles Palmer, who was a chartered surveyor.[4] He has a daughter, Harriet, and a son, Charles, a television director, who was married to actress Claire Skinner.[5]

Awards and recognition

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama.[6]

Appearances

Stage

• Kafka's Dick by Alan Bennett at the Royal Court Theatre (1986)
• Eden End by J. B. Priestley at the Royal National Theatre (1974)

Radio

• At Home With The Snails (2001-2002)
• Les Miserables as Inspector Javert (2002)
• The Man Who Was Thursday (2005) [7]
• High Table, Lower Orders (2005-2006)
• The Maltby Collection (2007-2009)
• A Murder of Quality (2009)
• North by Northamptonshire (2011-2012)
• Two Pipe Problems: The Case of the Missing Meerschaum as Mortimer Tregennis (2011)[8]

Television

• The Army Game (1958-1960) as Various Characters
• The Avengers:
  • "Propellant 23" (1962) as Paul Manning
  • "Man with Two Shadows" (1963) as Dr. Terence
  • "A Surfeit of H2O" (1965) as Martin Smythe
• The Saint:
  • "The Rough Diamonds" (1963) as Pete Ferguson
• Gideon's Way (TV Series)
  • "The Alibi Man" (1965) as Jeff Grant
• The Baron:
  • "Masquerade" (1966) as Anstruther
  • "The Killing" (1966) as Anstuther
• The Wednesday Play:
  • Cathy Come Home (1966) as Property Agent
• Mrs Thursday (1966) as Henry Baxter
• Doctor Who:
  • Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970) as Masters
  • The Mutants (1972) as Administrator
  • "Voyage of the Damned" (2007) as Captain Hardaker
• Colditz (1972) as Doc
• The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-1979) as Jimmy Anderson
• Butterflies (1978-1983) as Ben Parkinson
• The Professionals (1978) as Sinclair in "Where The Jungle Ends"
• Fawlty Towers:
  • "The Kipper and the Corpse" (1979) as Dr. Price
• The Goodies (1980) as School Headmaster
• Whoops Apocalypse (1982) as Foreign Secretary
• Death of an Expert Witness (1983) as Dr. Edwin Lorrimer
• The Professionals (1983) as Avery in "The Ojuka Situation"
• Fairly Secret Army (1984-1986) as Major Harry Kitchener Wellington Truscott
• Executive Stress (1986 first series only) as Donald Fairchild #1
• Season's Greetings (1986) as Bernard
• Hot Metal (1986) as Harold Stringer
• Christabel (1988) as Mr. Burton
• Blackadder Goes Forth:
  • Episode 6 "Goodbyeee" (1989); as Field Marshal Douglas Haig
• Inspector Morse:
  • "The Infernal Serpent" (1990) as Matthew Copley-Barnes
• Bergerac (1990)
  • "Roots of Evil" as Nigel Carter
• As Time Goes By (1992-2005) as Lionel Hardcastle
• The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (1996) as Jimmy Anderson
• Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998) as White King
• The Savages (2001) as Donald
• The 1940s House (2001) as Narrator
• Absolute Power (2003) as Lord Harcourt
• Grumpy Old Men (2003-2004, 2006) as Narrator
• He Knew He Was Right (2004) as Sir Marmaduke Rowley
• Grumpy Old Holidays (2006) as Narrator
• Ashes to Ashes:
  • "Episode 8" (2008); as Lord Scarman
• The Long Walk to Finchley (2008); as John Crowder
• Agatha Christie's Poirot:
  • "The Clocks" (2009) as Vice Admiral Hamling
• Grandpa in My Pocket
  • "Captain Dumbletwit's Toughest Mission Yet!" (2010) as Grandad Gillbert
• Rev
  • "Christmas Special" Series 2, episode 7 (2011) as Martin
• Henry IV, Part II (2012); as Lord Chief Justice
• Royal Variety Performance (2014); as the announcer (voice-only)

Film

• A Prize of Arms (1962) as Cpl. Myers
• Incident at Midnight (1963) as Dr. Tanfield
• Ring of Spies (1964) as Police Officer (uncredited)
• Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) as David (uncredited)
• O Lucky Man! (1973) as Examinator Doctor / Basil Keyes
• The Battle of Billy's Pond (1976) - First Policeman
• The Outsider (1979) as Colonel Wyndham
• The Honorary Consul (1983) as Belfrage: British Ambassador
• A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) as Fallast
• Clockwise (1986) as Headmaster
• A Fish Called Wanda (1988) as Judge
• Hawks (1988) as SAAB Salesman
• The Madness of King George (1994) as Warren
• Mrs. Brown (1997) as Henry Ponsonby
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) as Admiral Roebuck
• Stiff Upper Lips (1998) as His Butler's Voice
• Anna and the King (1999) as Lord John Bradley
• Rat (2000) as The Doctor
• Peter Pan (2003) as Sir Edward Quiller Couch
• Picadilly Jim (2005) - Bayliss
• The Pink Panther 2 (2009) as Joubert
• W.E. (2011) as Stanley Baldwin
• Lost Christmas (2011) as Dr. Clarence
• Run for Your Wife (2012) as Man on Bus
• Bert and Dickie (2012) as Charles Burnell
• The Last Sparks of Sundown (2014) as Sir Buster Sparks (voice)
• Paddington (2014) as Head Geographer

Recordings (spoken word)

• Welcome to the Pleasuredome (Fruitness Mix) (1985)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]