Roger bowen biography

Life and career.
Roger Wendell Bowen was an American comedic actor and novelist, best known for his portrayal of Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the 1970 film M*A*S*H.
Mr.

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I was born in 1935 in Swansea and brought up there and in Maidstone in Kent the only child of David Oswald Bowenand Marjorie Talbot Norton. In 1944 the family moved to Maidstone in Kent. From 1944 to 1954 I attended Maidstone Boys Grammar School. From 1954 to 1956 I served in the army as a National Serviceman both in the Royal West Kent and the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in Germany. At Oxford University, Keble College, I read Engineering Science from 1956 - 59. In 1960 I married Brenda Rosemary Gordon with whom I had two children, Joanna Talbot (b. 1961) and Geoffrey Gordon (b 1964). From 1959 to 1966 I was employed as an engineer in Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., a subsidiary of the Elliot Automation Group where I qualified in electronic Instrumentation as a member of that section of the Association of Electrical Engineers and was accepted into the British Institute of Management. From 1966 to 1970 I worked for John Heathcoat and Company in Tiverton as General Manager in charge of the installation, manufacture and sales of Textile Machinery, in a new purpose-built factory in Exeter.

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Roger Bowen

American actor and novelist (1932–1996)

Roger Wendell Bowen (May 25, 1932 – February 16, 1996) was an American comedic actor and novelist, best known for his portrayal of Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the 1970 film M*A*S*H.

Bowen considered himself a writer who only moonlighted as an actor. He wrote eleven novels (including Just Like a Movie) as well as sketches for Broadway and television. He was also one of the co-founders of Chicago's comedy and acting troupe The Second City.

Life and career

A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Bowen majored in English at Brown University, then attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. While writing theater reviews for The Chicago Maroon, he was asked to pen material for an improvisational troupe that included Alan Arkin and Mike Nichols. The troupe, Compass Players, evolved into The Second City. Bowen spent most of the 1960s playing "preppie" types on a number of TV & radio commercials. His first film role was 1968's Petulia, but his big movie break came in 1970 when he landed the role of Lieu

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When the founder of the Budleigh Music Festival, Roger Bowen, died at the start of 2023, he was remembered for his ‘vision and determination’ which launched the event in 2005.

Roger, who continued to be a ‘staunch supporter’ of the annual event took on the role of Festival Ambassador, championing access to live music for the community – and young people in particular.

Here his niece, Nicky Cowan pays tribute to her uncle, as Budleigh Salterton gears up to celebrate Roger’s life at a memorial at 2pm, on Monday, April 24, at the Temple Methodist Church, followed by refreshments at Budleigh Croquet Club at 3.15pm.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

When I asked my Uncle Roger not long before he died, what he’d like – meaning a cup of tea, a glass of water, a gin and tonic – his answer was: ‘a life.’ For my uncle loved life, and didn’t want to leave it, living it to the full, right up until he couldn’t, writes Nicky Cowan.

The poem – by Dylan Thomas is not just a