John Rodney Buckmaster

John Rodney Buckmaster (18 July 1915 – 1 April 1983) was an English actor on the stage, in films and on television, and a cabaret singer-songwriter. He was the son of actress Dame Gladys Cooper (1888–1971) and Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1881–1966). Educated at Eton College, he followed his mother into the acting profession and worked on both sides of the Atlantic. During World War II, he served for a time as a private in the United States Army Air Forces before resuming his acting career until the mid-1950s. He suffered increasingly from mental illness, which led to his confinement at the Priory Hospital, where he committed suicide on 1 April 1983. Early life John Buckmaster was born on 18 July 1915 in Frinton-on-Sea where his mother, actress Gladys Cooper, had bought a cottage. Most people had fled from Frinton at the start of World War I, but Cooper kept her daughter, Joan (b. 1910), and baby John there in the care of a nanny, Sarah Aves, while she herself stayed in London to be near the theatre and going down to be with them at weekends. His father was Herbert John Buckmaster, a veteran of the Boer War, known as "Buck", who founded Buck's Club and would later put the 'Buck' into Buck's Fizz. Herbert Buckmaster enlisted as soon as the war started and was given a commission in the 12th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry. After an initial posting in Aldershot, he went to France with the Royal Horse Guards in early 1915, where he remained for three-and-a-half years. During the war, Cooper wrote daily to her husband, giving him regular updates on their two children, including their son's stages of development from infant to toddler and little boy.