Jeremy Child

English child actor (1944–2022)

Sir Coles John Jeremy Child, 3rd Baronet (20 September 1944 – 7 March 2022) was a British actor.

Coles John Jeremy Child was born on 20 September 1944 in Woking, Surrey, son of Foreign Office diplomat Sir Coles John Child, He was educated at Wellesley House School, a preparatory school in the coastal town of Broadstairs in Kent and at Eton College and Aiglon College, then spent a year at Poitiers University, followed by training as a child actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Following this appearance, he played over 90 different roles in films and television, including a small role in the film Quadrophenia; as Piers Leigh in the miniseries Edward & Mrs. Simpson; as one of the main villains in Bird of Prey; as Tory politician Charles Gurney Seymour in the television adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's First Among Equals, and a cameo in A Fish Called Wanda. From 1977 to 1978, he appeared in the second series of Backs to the Land. He also played a typical officer class role in Fairly Secret Army (1984 86). Child appeared in the 2004 film Wimbledon and television drama Judge John Deed. He also appeared in Doctors for one episode, and most recently appeared as David Walsh in EastEnders. Child played the British Foreign Secretary three times in his career.

In 1993, Child appeared in a party political broadcast for the Labour Party which also starred Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.

Child was married three times, his first wife being the actress Deborah Grant, by whom he had a daughter. His second wife was Jan Todd, daughter of actor Bernard Todd, by whom he had a son and a daughter. He had a daughter and a son from his third marriage to publisher Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of Rev. Grenville Morgan, of Canterbury, Kent. He lived in Ewelme, Oxfordshire. Child died after a long illness on 7 March 2022, at the age of 77.