Richard Goolden

Richard Percy Herbert Goolden, OBE (23 February 1895 – 18 June 1981) was a British actor, most famous for his portrayal of Mole from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 children's book The Wind in the Willows in A A Milne's 1929 stage adaptation, Toad of Toad Hall. Goolden took up the stage after serving in the army in the First World War. From the start of his career he was cast in character parts, usually elderly. He played more than 500 roles in a career that lasted more than fifty years, and embraced the classics, farce, opera bouffe, radio, films and television. He first played Mole in 1930 and took the part in numerous revivals until his retirement in 1980. He created roles in new plays by Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard, and, in his last year, in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.