“What Price Churchill?” Click here for the final moments of a momen­tous tele­vi­sion epic. “Churchill: The Wilder­ness Years” (1981) enshrined him for­ev­er as the great­est of “Churchills” in a sea of pale imi­ta­tions. Mar­tin Gilbert‘s close involve­ment with the scriptwrit­ers gave him truth and sub­stance. In a world of revi­sion­ist his­to­ry, flawed por­traits and over­played roles, it was accu­rate to a fault. Tim­o­thy Robert Hardy was the only actor to play her father for whom Lady Soames would brook no word of crit­i­cism. I’ll always remem­ber her greet­ing Tim with out­stretched arms: “Papa!”

Hardy at Hillsdale

I’m glad we were in time. In Octo­ber 2015, we host­ed him at a Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Con­fer­ence, where he wowed an audi­ence of 600, guests, stu­dents and fac­ul­ty. He told us that he strove imper­fect­ly to play Churchill—to find, as he said, “a way in.” On anoth­er occa­sion he had said: “I shall nev­er look down from that peak, but as long as I live I shall delight in gaz­ing upwards towards those tow­er­ing rocks.”

He was, of course, express­ing the win­ning mod­esty that always accom­pa­nied him, gain­ing the affec­tion of the world in his every role, from Shakespeare’s clas­sics, to Siegfried Farnon, the York­shire vet of All Crea­tures Great and Small, to Cor­nelius Fudge, Min­is­ter of Mag­ic in Har­ry Pot­ter. (Of the lat­ter role, his regret­ted only that he had no per­son­al owl.)

And on to the end…

In April 2016 he was back at Hills­dale to talk to stu­dents about act­ing as a career. As before, he was a one-man show, launch­ing into long quotes in Old Eng­lish from Can­ter­bury Tales.  Stu­dents and fac­ul­ty alike were awestruck by his mem­o­ries of Oxford, and his tutors, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

I feel his loss deeply, because on count­less occa­sions he was there for me, appear­ing reg­u­lar­ly at Churchill events, and our Churchill tours of Eng­land. On one of these he arranged a spe­cial tour of the Mary Rose restora­tion project at Portsmouth. A his­to­ri­an of the Eng­lish long­bow, he was the Mary Rose Trust’s archery consultant.

Every­where he went he was always ready for an affa­ble chat with every­one who admired him, and they were many. To those who knew what he had accom­plished in his roles as Sir Win­ston, no actor how­ev­er good could ever come close.

I will gaze for­ev­er at Robert Hardy’s tow­er­ing rocks of achieve­ment. He was the most gen­uine “Churchill” of them all. Far beyond that, he was a noble spir­it, the most gen­uine human being. He is irre­place­able. I shall mourn him forever.

Addendum, 8 March 2018

His daugh­ter Jus­tine com­ments on the estate auc­tion of Robert Hardy, a sad event, redo­lent of what Churchill wrote in Great Con­tem­po­raries: “I felt the tragedy which robs the world of all the wis­dom and trea­sure gath­ered in a great man’s life and expe­ri­ence and hands the lamp to some impetu­ous and untu­tored stripling, or lets it fall shiv­ered into frag­ments upon the ground.”