Peter Arne

Peter Arne was for a short time the Perfect villain in British film. After a couple of roles in war movies (The Purple Plain (1954) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)) and a Tarzan movie (Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957)) he became a villain in Strangers' Meeting (1957).

From than on he continued to play sinister types in The Moonraker (1958), Intent to Kill (1958), Breakout (1959), Conspiracy of Hearts (1960), The Hellfire Club (1961) and The Secret of Monte Cristo (1961). He was very convincing as a Cromwell officer, an Italian camp commander or a Nazi officer. Several times he had sword fights as a devious count.

In 1962 he was a pirate sidekick of Christopher Lee in The Pirates of Blood River (1962), but a new kid on the block by the name of Oliver Reed challenged him and killed him halfway through the picture. It seemed like a symbolic fight because for a while Oliver Reed played the roles in Hammer Pictures that Peter Arne could have played and Arne moved to TV roles. His days as a leading actor were over and he continued work in TV and in bit parts in features. Sometimes directors he worked with before brought him back for a little role.

In 1972 he got a nice break with "The Stallion", a TV movie in which he starred with a horse. He was also in a couple of Blake Edwards movies. He became an antique dealer with his sister as a sideline.

Arne had been cast to play the part of Range in Doctor Who: Frontios: Part One (1984). He had just returned from a costume fitting when he was bludgeoned to death in his apartment with a log from the fireplace. The role was later filled by William Lucas. The prime suspect in Arne's murder was a schoolteacher from Italy who had been living rough in a local park, for whom Arne had been providing food, and who drowned a few days later in an apparent suicide. Police suspect the murderer came to Arne's home for whatever reason, and became incensed either when Arne made A Pass at him, or refused his request for accommodation. A man fitting the suspect's description was also spotted by a neighbor sitting on the entry stairs of Arne's building shortly before Arne returned home from the aforementioned fitting at the BBC, eating from what appeared to be a jar of honey, a half-eaten jar of which was found in Arne's flat. The alleged killer's body was found washed up near Wandsworth bridge 3 days later, his bloodstained clothes found upstream at Putney. The coroner concluded that the man killed Arne and then committed suicide whilst in a disturbed state of mind.