Early-life: George Edward Cole was born in London on April 22, 1925. His mother, whom he never met, abandoned him at 10 days old, and he was adopted by the Cole family. George left school to be a butcher's boy, but won a part in a touring musical and opted for acting instead. At 15 he and his adoptive mother moved in with Alastair Sim's family after he appeared in a film with the thespian. They helped him lose his cockney accent, and he stayed with them until his first marriage at 27.

Early-life: Born February 24, 1948, in Clapham, south London, the youngest of nine children, the son of a British Rail ticket collector. As a child he attended the Corona Theatre School and began his professional career with a role in Snowball, a 1960 Children's Film Foundation production. The same year he made Night Train to Inverness, and was asked to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. Playing William in a TV series based on the Just William books made him a star. He then tried to break into Hollywood.

Early-life: Born Patrick Gerald Duggan in Reading on March 24, 1945. In 1976, he made his TV acting debut in The Flight of the Heron. Since then, the prolific character actor has appeared in a number of TV shows.

Early-life: Clement's parents, Ann Tribe and Reginald Clement, married in 1940, but shortly after Clement's birth in 1942, her mother died and she was put into foster care. Clement subsequently grew up in various different foster homes until she was taken in by a family who owned a farm in Devon. Clement was sent to boarding school on the South Downs. She was active in the drama society at her school. She decided to become a teacher and enrolled at the Rolle teacher training college in Exmouth (now part of the University of Plymouth). She worked in the teaching profession until her desire to act prompted her to attend drama school, the Rose Bruford College, and she eventually took up acting professionally. Her stage name was inspired by a street name in Islington - St Clement Street.