Sandor Eles: from Hammer Horror to Crossroads

A face many of us knew from his stage, TV and film work, Sandor Eles, was born in Tatabánya, 60km west of Budapest, in June 1936. He became a British citizen on 10 January 1977. After a long and successful career, he died of a heart attack on 10 September 2002.

Sandor Eles, 1964

While doing some research on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), I was surprised to find that he died in his flat in Morland House, 17 Brondesbury Road Kilburn. At the time of his death Sandor did not have any heirs, and his name appeared on the Government Bona Vacantia list of unclaimed estates.

Sandor was orphaned and aged 20, fled during the Hungarian Revolution of October and November 1956 when Soviet tanks entered Budapest. After receiving help from the Red Cross in Vienna, he travelled to England, unable to speak the language. Nonetheless, having trained at a student theatre in Hungary, he attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and began his professional stage career in 1958.

His TV appearances included many popular series such as: Danger Man, The Baron, The Saint, Timeslip, Jason King, and The Avengers. He appeared as a storyteller on the BBC children’s programme Jackanory in 10 episodes between 1970 and 1972.

In an early film role, Sandor appeared as a young artist in The Rebel (1961), the story of a would-be sculptor played by Tony Hancock. The location team turned up at Marianne Colloms’ home in West Hampstead. They hired a room from her mother where Tony could rest between filming a scene next door. Marianne remembers lots of takes as he tried to rent space for himself and his enormous, grotesque statue from the landlady Irene Handl. ‘Aphrodite at the Water Hole’ was left on the back of a lorry parked in the road and caused a lot of local interest as spectators came to watch the filming. However, these scenes did not appear in the final cut.

Tony Hancock in The Rebel (1961)

One of Sandor's most memorable film roles was in ‘And Soon the Darkness’ (1970). The Avengers production team had just finished a series. The writers Brian Clemens and Terry Nation gave director Robert Fuest a script and he took a small crew and cast to film in France. The plot involved two nurses, Jane played by Pamela Franklin and Cathy played by Michele Dotrice, who have different ideas about how to spend the cycling holiday. Jane wants to push on and see the country, Cathy fancies something more leisurely, with a spot of sunbathing thrown in as they travel across rural France. They split up and Jane disappears.

Sandor plays the handsome mysterious character Paul, who wears dark glasses and rides a Lambretta scooter.

The trailer for the film is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmEOl29iy8c

Sandor had major roles in the Hammer Horror movies ‘The Evil of Frankenstein’ (1964) starring Peter Cushing, and ‘Countess Dracula’ (1971) with Ingrid Pitt.

He was a versatile stage actor in John Osbourne plays, Feydeau farces and he sang and danced for two years in the musical Fidler on the Roof. He appeared from 1982 to 1985 as the scheming restaurant manager, Paul Ross, in the TV soap opera Crossroads. His last film role was a party guest in the Merchant/Ivory production ‘Surviving Picasso’ in 1996.

Having a great love of classical music and the culture of his Hungarian homeland, Sandor appeared in Ken Russell’s film Bartok for BBC Monitor in 1964. Sandor was a private man, and little is known about his personal life.

A list of some of his many performances is given in IMDB

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0255973/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

False Arrest: the Allum and Hislop Case

Trinidadian Desmond Allum came to London to study law in 1958. He worked in hotel kitchens and the Post Office and studied law at night. He qualified and was called to the Bar in the summer of 1962 and then got a job with the Inland Revenue. In 1964 and 1965 he lived at 116 Greencroft Gardens in West Hampstead. His friend George Hislop was born in Tobago. He played cricket for Trinidad and represented the West Indies at the Empire Games held in Cardiff in 1958. The following year he came to London to train as a teacher. In September 1962 he started work as a PE teacher at the Hillcroft Secondary School in Tooting Bec. The Incident On the evening of 31 January 1963 Allum and Hislop had visited friends at 351b Finchley Road (now redeveloped as part of the JW3 Centre). They left and were walking down Finchley Road towards the underground station on their way to Balham. At 9.25pm they were stopped and questioned by two plain clothes detectives who asked them to turn out their po...

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History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

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