Early life and military service
Tingwell was born in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, the son of William Harvey Tingwell and Enid (née Green). William volunteered as a surf lifesaver at Coogee Surf Life Saving Club where, in 1922, a colleague noticed Enid's pregnancy and asked, 'What's budding there?', and 'Bud' became the nickname for their infant son. As an adolescent, Bud was encouraged by his father to train as an accountant, but Tingwell failed the entrance exam.
While still at school, he became a cadet at Sydney radio station 2CH, soon becoming the youngest radio announcer in Australia.[2]
Second World War
In 1941, aged 18, Tingwell volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces formed part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942. Despite damaging a Harvard training aircraft in August, he later qualified as a pilot and was commissioned as a pilot officer that December. He was posted to the Mediterranean Theatre and underwent operational training with No. 74 Operational Training Unit RAF, in British Palestine, and qualified to fly the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire.
It was just that you didn't not try to go, you know [...] You were so, I suppose, orientated towards the fact that the war's on and this is the right thing to do. We also did know quite a lot, a lot more than people realise I think, that difficult things were happening in Europe [...] We had Jewish friends who had rellies who had an awful time and we knew that was happening and refugees were arriving in Australia in the pre-war time. [...] We had German family next door and they had a son-in-law who wouldn't not say – he was a suspect, possible Nazi sympathiser, so he had to go inside somewhere. And Hitler, we knew a lot about Hitler and about Mussolini.
— Tingwell discussing his reasons for going to war (2002)[5]
In January 1944, he was posted to No. 680 Squadron RAF, a photo reconnaissance unit, and flew 75 sorties in Mosquitos and Spitfires during the Italian campaign. Other aircraft that Tingwell was qualified to fly included the Bristol Blenheim, Martin Baltimore, Bristol Beaufighter and Airspeed Oxford. He was promoted to flying officer in June 1943 and flight lieutenant in December 1944.
Towards the end of the war, Tingwell was transferred back to Australia. He was posted to No. 5 Operational Training Unit RAAF as a flying instructor in June 1945, and then in December 1945, after the war had ended, he was posted to No. 87 Squadron RAAF, flying photo-reconnaissance Mosquitoes, until his demobilisation in March 1946.
Tingwell's war service earned him the 1939–45 Star, Italy Star, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939–1945, and Australia Service Medal 1939–1945.[6] He remained a reservist into the 1950s.
Post-war life and acting career
Australia
After returning to Australia, Tingwell married his childhood sweetheart, Audrey May Wilson.[7] They were to have two children, Christopher and Virginia.[8]
He joined Doris Fitton's Independent Theatre company and appeared on stage from the mid-1940s in such classics as The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman[9] and Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot[10]
In 1946, Tingwell was given his first film role, in Smithy, cast as an RAAF control tower officer – winning the role since he could supply his own RAAF uniform.
Tingwell had an excellent supporting role in Bitter Springs (1950), made by Ealing Studios with Chips Rafferty; Tingwell played Rafferty's bigoted son. He had a similar role in Kangaroo (1952), a Hollywood-financed film shot in Australia for 20th Century Fox. He then appeared in I Found Joe Barton (1952), the first TV show filmed in Australia.
Fox liked Tingwell's work in Kangaroo and invited him to Los Angeles to play the role of Lt. Harry Carstairs in The Desert Rats, in which he appeared opposite Chips Rafferty, James Mason and Richard Burton. They offered him a long-term contract but Tingwell turned it down because he wanted to return to Australia.[5]
Tingwell played the lead in King of the Coral Sea (1954) alongside Rafferty. In 1954, he co-starred with Gordon Chater in Top of the Bill, the first of the famous satirical revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre.
England
The Australian film and radio industry slumped with the advent of television and Tingwell decided to move to the UK. He used the opportunity of a role in Ealing's The Shiralee (1957), which was filmed in Australia and London. Tingwell travelled to England to complete his scenes and decided to stay.
The following year, he took on his first recurring television role, as Australian surgeon Alan Dawson in the live TV serial Emergency Ward 10 and its film spin-off Life in Emergency Ward 10 (1959).
He had small roles in Ealing's Dunkirk (1958), then Bobbikins (1959), Cone of Silence (1960), and Tarzan the Magnificent (1960).
Tingwell played the role of Inspector Craddock in all four films of the Miss Marple series, starring Margaret Rutherford, from 1961 to 1964: Murder, She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963), Murder Most Foul (1964) and Murder Ahoy! (1964). For Hammer Films he appeared in The Secret of Blood Island (1964) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).
He had the lead in a TV series An Enemy of the State (1965).
In the late 1960s, he performed various minor voice roles for the Gerry Anderson "Supermarionation" TV series Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, besides appearing in the first series of Catweazle.
In 1969 until the end of the play's run, he appeared as Robert Danvers in the long running farce There's a Girl in My Soup at the Comedy Theatre, London.
He was the recurring character of motel manager Kevin McArthur in Crossroads in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[citation needed] (Vincent Ball played McArthur in 1970–1973). He had a small role in Nobody Runs Forever (1968) with Rod Taylor.
Return to Australia
Tingwell appeared in many other films during his time in Britain, spending a total of 16 years as a "London Aussie".[11] In 1973, he returned to Australia with his wife and children, and shortly after won the role of Inspector Reg Lawson in the long-running TV series Homicide. This was followed by small roles in a number of major Australian films, such as Breaker Morant (1980), Puberty Blues (1981) and All the Rivers Run (1983). He also played the recurring role of farmer Ted Campbell in the soap A Country Practice in the late 1980s and early 1990s and as the Narrator from The Flying Scotsman in Australia
Revival in popularity
Tingwell's career went through a quiet period during the late 1980s and early 1990s, until he took on the role of "Gramps" in "Charlie the Wonderdog", a recurring segment on The Late Show, in 1993. His role in The Late Show was later to win him a major role as lawyer Lawrence Hammill in the film The Castle (1997). He later stated that this role helped him to recover from the death of his wife the previous year.
After the success of The Castle, Tingwell's career underwent a revival during the late 1990s and early 2000s. This saw him take on small roles in the commercial films The Craic (1999) and The Dish (2000), and in the TV mini-series Changi, as well as the lead role in the romantic drama film Innocence (2000). He would also appear on other sketch Totally Full Frontal, playing himself, as well as a recurring guest role in the soap opera Neighbours from 2000 to 2003, playing Henry O'Rourke. He had previously appeared in the soap in 1993 as Bert Willis.[12] He appeared as John Conroy in the musical theatre production The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular, which toured Australian capital cities twice during 2002.
In 2004, Tingwell published a memoir, Bud: A Life. In 2006, he launched his own website, which attracted 500 registered users in just over a week. On 5 October that year, he created his first blog. He continued to act regularly until his death, in a number of films and TV programmes including eight episodes of Bed of Roses that aired in 2010. Among his last appearances, he hosted both Celebrity Circus and 20 to 1 and appeared on a celebrity special of Temptation with his daughter, Virginia.
