My father, John Frankau, who has died aged 96, was a prolific theatre and television director. After rising through the ranks in the theatre, he broke into TV in the 1950s. Among his many credits were episodes of the long-running police drama No Hiding Place in 1965, and of The Main Chance (1969), a series about a lawyer starring John Stride.
In 1973 John directed the Yorkshire Television play Sarah, which was nominated for an Emmy award. The following year, again for Yorkshire TV, in the ITV Playhouse series, he made Mr Axelford’s Angel, with Julia Foster in the title role, which won the Emmy. The award certificates lived on the wall beside his desk.
John was the second child of the comedian Ronald Frankau and his wife, Hilda (nee Petley), and was born in a pretty nursing home overlooking Jesus Green in Cambridge. He would continue to have a close relationship with the city, going to the Leys school and then to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied engineering.
However, his first love was the theatre, and he quickly realised he was a better director than an actor. He had the ability to communicate with the actors on an artistic level and the crew on a technical level.
He married Barry Wildblood, probably the only female Barry in history, in 1948. She followed John around repertory theatres, taking whatever jobs were available in each theatre, including occasional acting roles under the name Jennifer Stuart.
By the time I was born in 1954, they were living in a top floor flat in Notting Hill Gate, west London, and my father was working in television. He was in demand, often working on three projects at once, and was for a while head of drama at Thames TV. He had a curious ability to make people love him, however demanding he was.
While I became an actor, he avoided employing me until 1991, when he was engaged on one of his last jobs as a director of drama, a series called The Mixer, starring Simon Williams and Jeremy Clyde. He was good fun to work for. Although the series did not make it to British TV screens, it was shown in France and Germany.
Surprisingly, he took to retirement quite well. Having lived for most of their lives in London and the surrounding area, my mother and he bought a house in Newmarket, Suffolk, and he spent three years doing the house up.
Barry was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. Supporting her was his final project. He did it brilliantly.
She died in 2010. He is survived by me, and by three grandsons, Tommy, Ned and Toby, and two great-grandchildren, Freddie and Sidney.
