An exotic life of colour and class

Crossing the Nullarbor by car, Rhoderick Walker told the Herald in 1959, was ''a walkover'' compared with the deserts of Iran.

The charismatic British actor had recently driven 27,000 kilometres from London, via the Middle East and India, to Perth, to visit his mother and sister. The trip took six months.

It was just one exotic adventure in an exceedingly colourful life.

Walker was born on December 11, 1920, in Nottinghamshire in England, youngest of three children of a miner, Ronald Walker, and his wife, Laura (Everall). He maintained that his mother was the illegitimate daughter of William Cavendish-Bentinck, the 6th Duke of Portland; after his father died, the Cavendish-Bentincks gave his mother a lifelong allowance and took the ailing child - he suffered from bronchial problems for most of his life - into their home, and the duchess provided him with home-schooling.

Always interested in acting, Walker appeared in various stage productions as a teenager, but his thespian aspirations were put on hold during World War II when he was sent to France to serve. A bout of pneumonia saw him return to England to recuperate, but he was sent back to France just as the Germans broke through. Making their way to the troopships to be evacuated, he and his group came under fire from the Luftwaffe. They saw a neighbouring ship sunk, taking some 3000 men with it. Walker was 19.

On his return to England, he set about pursuing his acting dream once again, working with the BBC's drama department in North Wales. He turned novels and stories into stage plays, in which he acted with Michael Rennie and Michael Redgrave, among others.

It was through a radio adaptation of the Broadway hit Lady in the Dark that Walker met the actress Gertrude Lawrence. The pair became good friends, giving Walker the opportunity to meet his hero, Noel Coward, as Lawrence was one of the playwright's favourite actresses.

After moving to New York in 1946, Walker appeared in a Broadway revival of Coward's Tonight at 8.30 with Lawrence. He spent the next few years living on Park Avenue - where he counted the composer Leonard Bernstein among his neighbours - happily working in the theatre scene, acting, stage managing and writing scripts. He also tried his hand on television, appearing in an episode of the live variety show Ford Star Jubilee directed by Noel Coward in 1955 and an episode of Producers' Showcase with Audrey Hepburn in 1957.

Walker loved the New York theatre scene, but was keen to visit his mother and sister who had migrated to Perth. Sensing an opportunity for adventure, he decided that rather than travel by boat, he would drive. Back in London, he sought sponsorship from a car manufacturer, the Rootes Group, which provided him with a Hillman Husky (a small station wagon).