Bill Maynard

When told that Williams was too common a surname to use professionally, he adopted the name Maynard after seeing a sign advertising Maynard's Wine Gums.
His second wife was Tonia Bern-Campbell, widow of Donald Campbell who died trying to break the world water speed record in 1967.
Despite appearing in five of the Carry On films, he was baffled by their popularity.
He was forced to retire temporarily from acting in 2000 after suffering a number of strokes, the final one being while he was filming for Heartbeat (1992) in which he had played Claude Jeremiah Greengrass for ten seasons. The character of Claude was written out, mid-series, in such a way that Bill Maynard could return if his health improved: in the story, Claude moved to the West Indies to live with his sister, who won a lot of money and wanted to share it with him (Safe House (2001)). He returned to acting in 2003, playing the same character in The Royal (2003), a spin-off from Heartbeat (1992). It is set in hospital and he was in bed a lot, but appeared to have recovered.
He lost part of the middle finger of his right hand in a childhood accident with a mangle.

I've done everything in this business from acting and singing to tap dancing, opera and one-man shows. People can't understand why I still want to work at my age and I tell them it's not work. I love it.
The producers said that Heartbeat (1992) wasn't likely to last, but asked that I give Greengrass, who only had a few lines, an injection of humour. It was the easiest role I've ever played because they allowed me so much freedom with Greengrass. I got the idea for him to wear that old grey army coat from when I did The Caretaker on stage so it appeared that he had a heroic past in the military.
I did 31 films. Confessions. Carry On. All rubbish. I did two films with Arthur Lowe. Lovely man, terrible films. I enjoyed doing them. It was a laugh, but they weren't great. They damaged my reputation.