Christopher Hewett

A veteran stage actor who began his career at the age of seven in a Dublin production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Hewitt was best known to audiences as the butler in the title role of the sitcom "Mr. Belvedere." Born in England, Hewitt joined the Oxford Repertory Company as a teenager, and debuted in London's West End in 1943. He later appeared in Broadway musicals such as "My Fair Lady" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," and the play "Sleuth." He also directed "From A to Z"on Broadway and the off-Broadway production of Rodgers and Hart's "By Jupiter." His film debut was in the British crime drama "Pool of London" in 1951, and later that year he appeared as Inspector Talbot in "The Lavender Hill Mob." He also had a memorable role as effeminate stage director Roger De Bris in Mel Brooks's comedy "The Producers" in 1968. He began making guest appearances on TV shows in the 1950s, and in 1979 he played a butler in an "ABC Afterschool Special," foreshadowing his later role as Mr. Belvedere. From 1983 to 1984 he had an eight-episode stint as Mr. Roarke's assistant on "Fantasy Island" after the departure of Hervé Villechaize. "Mr. Belvedere" ran for six seasons beginning in 1985, and featured Hewitt playing a posh English butler for an American family, a character based on a 1947 novel that had also been adapted into a series of films starring Clifton Webb.