There were two key periods in the working life of the reliable, handsome and much-admired supporting actor Michael Byrne – his piercing blue eyes gave many a good stare – who has died aged 82. The first was his casting in small roles in Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in 1963.
The second was his run of parts in several notable second world war movies in the 1970s: John Sturges’ last film, The Eagle Has Landed (1976), about a fictional German plot to kidnap Churchill, in which he was a German NCO; Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977), switching sides in a failed allied operation in Nazi-occupied Holland; and as Major Schroeder in Guy Hamilton’s Force 10 from Navarone (1978).
