Picture Parfitt

In a remarkable film career spanning almost four decades, David Parfitt has gone from child actor, to Oscar-winning producer and finally, to BAFTA Chairman. Anwar Brett meets the man who introduced Kenneth Branagh to south London

Above: David Parfitt

When he becomes chairman of BAFTA in June, David Parfitt will complete a remarkable journey that began in earnest 38 years ago. Now in his fiftieth year Parfitt first found success as a child actor in the popular ITV sitcom And Mother Makes Three, which ran from 1971 to 1973, before evolving into And Mother Makes Five.

He played Peter Harrison, younger son of a widow played by Wendy Craig. But even as he charmed audiences sometimes as large as 18 million viewers, Parfitt found himself drawn to the work done behind the cameras where he would eventually find his most enduring success.

"Certainly in the latter part of the run I was much more interested in what was going on in the studio than I was in the acting," he nods. "It was weird because I went through adolescence through those series, I started it at 12 and left at 17, so I really grew up through it.

"I remember getting a serious lecture from Wendy who said ‘you will get dumped if you don’t up your game’. I was so disinterested in acting that really I was just turning up and grunting, because I was

a horrible adolescent at the time, my voice had just broken and I was more interested in being up with the vision mixer and seeing what he did during rehearsals."

When the series finally ended in 1976 Parfitt was unable to immediately pursue his production ambitions, and even found it difficult to secure other acting jobs.

"For a while I was doing more painting and decorating than acting. I initially just did that for friends, and it turned into a little business doing small building work and subbing out – that was an interesting management lesson. And then I ran a small printing business on the side, producing programmes and posters for theatre tours."

Without realising he was acquiring the experience that would stand him in good stead as the film producer he would become, developing the resourcefulness and organisational talents that best serve the person who is often the driving force behind a production.

But it was a meeting with Kenneth Branagh, when they were cast in the original production of Another Country, that set the wheels in motion for Parfitt’s film career.

"Ken was very loyal, as his career grew very fast from that point he didn’t forget the conversations that we had when we planned our futures at the Queen’s Theatre."

These plans eventually led to the magnificent Henry V in 1989, an astonishing directorial debut from Branagh on which Parfitt served as associate producer. The film was released under the banner of their company, Renaissance, and in the heady years that followed the success continued.

"Between founding the company in 1987 and pretty much wrapping it up after Much Ado About Nothing in 1991, it was a very short period. As we moved in towards the mid-90s both of us got divorced, there was no life outside the company and it just all got a bit too intense, I think."

In the years since, Parfitt’s talents have helped steer many successful movies to the screen, including The Madness of King George, The Wings of the Dove and Shakespeare In Love. And through the inevitable ups and downs of a career making British movies he is able to chart his personal journey around the capital through the homes he has lived in.

"I’ve been in south London for a long time," he explains. "I’ve lived in the suburbs, then worked my way in at Putney and Wandsworth. And then when I wanted to move from a flat to a house I moved to Peckham, which I knew something about having helped Ken [Branagh] find a flat in Camberwell Grove.

"I couldn’t afford the area but I could afford Peckham, so I was only walking distance from work, which was great. I lived in Peckham, moving up the chain then got divorced and went down to the bottom and started again!"

The current home he shares in Brixton with wife Liz Barron was a project ever bit as challenging – and daunting – as any of the movies he has worked on.

"Liz saw this amazing house in an estate agent’s window at a price that didn’t make sense. We went to see it and we realised it was totally derelict.

"Gradually, as the house rotted around them, they moved into one room. It had dry rot, wet rot, no internal plumbing, no electricity or telephone. We replaced everything from the roof to the cellar, starting all over again. So it was this combination of getting somewhere with a big garden for – at that time – a planned family, and being very near to Brockwell Park. It had all the right things for us, a big period house that looks like a big old vicarage. We bought it for a song. We couldn’t afford it now."

It took the couple two years to re-build the house but once again Parfitt’s organisational skills came in handy, as did his old contacts in the building trade. "We supervised the job ourselves, in fact a lot of my old team came in to do it, so it was very controlled. It was habitable by the end of Shakespeare In Love, by which time Liz was pregnant with our first son."

If fortuitous timing is a talent, then David Parfitt clearly has it, with the birth of Thomas nine years ago and Max two years later completing the family picture that also includes Bill, his 17 year old son from his first marriage.

While he remains an active producer – his latest movies include A Bunch of Amateurs – Parfitt is preparing to move into the BAFTA hot seat at a challenging time for British cinema. The skills he brought to bear on his movies will be essential, but the patience and care he put into making his dream home might prove most useful of all.