Television favourite turned tenants’ leader dies aged 82

Jerry Stovin

JERRY Stovin, who died aged 82 in Canada on Saturday, was known for his tireless work as a tenants’ leader on the Maiden Lane estate in Camden Town.
When household refuse on the estate, where Jerry lived for 25 years, lay uncollected he arranged for tenants to walk to the Town Hall with the rubbish and leave it on the steps.
A founder member of the management board, he was its chairman for two years, a challenge he grasped with determination at the age of 79.
Born in Unity, Saskatchewan, on October 11, 1922, he lived in Canada for the early part of his life and first saw Europe when he served with the Canadian army from 1942 to 1946.
He moved to England in 1955, after completing a drama degree and went on to appear in numerous theatre, radio and television shows, including Hancock’s Half Hour, and had a long-running part in the TV serial Emergency Ward 10.
He made a living playing Americans in television series such as Danger Man and The Saint. Invariably, he was the four-star general or the brash US businessman.
By contrast, Jerry was receptive to the influences of Eastern spirituality.
He ran the London office of the movement for transcendental meditation, and visited the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh in India in 1968 with the Beatles and actress Mia Farrow. He remembers John Lennon complaining that no marmalade was available at breakfast.
A student at Holmes Road Adult Education Institute, he exhibited at Morley Gallery in Lambeth with the London Potters, a show which Paul McCartney visited.
Jerry asked if he remembered him from the Rishikesh visit and was astonished to hear McCartney say that he did.
McCartney recalled that Jerry was then “becoming a much-acclaimed actor at the time, and that all of our wives and girlfriends seemed to like you better than any of us”.
Blushing, he asked if McCartney remembered that he had requested that if he had a daughter he might name her after Jerry’s mother, Beatrice.
McCartney agreed and in 2003, his wife Heather had a daughter, who was named Beatrice.
Jerry had been housed on Maiden Lane estate in 1980. He was opposed to Camden Council’s funding plans for the estate, whether through a Private Finance Initiative or an Arms’-Length Management Organisation.
He believed it was the responsibility of a local authority to maintain and manage its housing estates.

GERRY HARRISON