Character to be written out of series after actor’s death

Press, 14 August 1989, Page 19

Character to be written out of series after actor’s death

By

TONY VERDON

London correspondent Tom Howard, the character who started it all in the British yachting drama, “Howard’s Way,” will be written out of the series.

The programme makers and the cast say that the actor, Maurice Colbourne, who died last week, made a unique contribution to the role.

His on-off relationship with his estranged screen wife, Jan, played by Jan Harvey, has drawn millions of viewers to the 8.8. C. show, which has been screening over the last five years. The 8.8. C. has decided that no-one could be expected to take over Colbourne’s role convincingly.

There had been speculation that Tom Howard would live on, played by another actor, in the way that the 8.8. C. television comedy show “Bread” has replaced “Joey” following actor

Peter Howitt’s resignation. But Jan Harvey says there could be no question of such a move on “Howard’s Way.”

Maurice Colbourne died after apparently suffering a heart attack at his holiday home in France. Speaking as the cast reassembled in Guernsey for several days’ filming, Jan Harvey stressed that

the actors put a lot of themselves into their characters in the boatbuilding saga.

“Tom Howard was a greatly loved character. His gentleness, his compassion and his sincerity were probably all added by Maurice,” she said.

“We have never been ‘Dallas’ or ‘Dynasty,’ even though we may be the British equivalent. We have always aimed to have a sense of reality about the series and we very sadly no longer have Maurice, so we can no longer have Tom Howard.”

According to the “Daily Mail” newspaper, scriptwriters have already devised a way of seamlessly getting around the absence of Tom Howard for the four of the 13 episodes of the latest series of "Howard’s Way” which have still to be filmed.

The series currently being filmed will begin

screening in Britain at the end of this month.

The making of a further series has already been approved by the 8.8. C., and filming is due to start in February. That is when Tom Howard will be written out.

An associate producer of the programme, Mr Tony Rowe, refused to reveal the details of the story lines involved. But he said the feeling was that the whole nation had been hoping that one day Tom and Jan would get back together, and it was difficult to think of someone else taking Maurice Colbourne’s place in that situation.

“To develop the story without him credits the audience with a little more intelligence than the Americans usually do,” said Mr Rowe.

“But there will always be a resonance of Maurice in Howard’s Way because other characters will always talk of Tom Howard.”