BBC actor died £160,000 in debt after crash as co-star | UK News

A BBC star died more than £200,000 in debt in a deadly car crash, which left his passenger requiring virtually 100 stitches. Born in the United States, Bonar Colleano rose to fame in movies including Pickup Alley, A Matter of Life and Death and Eight Iron Men, but also starred in BBC exhibits like its Sunday-Night Theatre programme in 1958.

His closing position got here that same yr, when Bonar starred as Joe Longo in Death Over My Shoulder. At the time of his death, the actor was starring in a Liverpool manufacturing of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, and was heading back to his lodge from rehearsals with fellow solid member Michael Balfour, in his sports activities car.

Colleano was just 35 at the time when his Jaguar XK140 crashed through fencing and onto an embankment at the junction of Corporation Road and Lansdowne Road, in August 1958.

He died immediately upon impression, but 40-year-old Balfour was in a position to crawl out of the wreckage and was fortunately picked up by a taxi driver, and rushed to hospital for 98 stitches.

Tragically, Bonar left big money owed behind – that despatched his Carry On star spouse Susan Shaw battling an alcohol dependancy. He owed around £8,000 to Inland Revenue for income tax – equal to around £164,445 in today’s money.

When he died, Bonar had belongings of just £367 – around £7,500 today.

His money owed meant his co-stars had to fundraise for Bonar’s household – his widow Susan and their son Mark, who was only three years outdated at the time.

It also meant tragedy for Susan, who also died penniless after another failed marriage. Susan died in 1978 of cirrhosis of the liver, and her funeral had to be paid for by the Rank Organisation.

Her local pub landlord said at the time: “She came in here every day. They say she died of cirrhosis of the liver and she lived next door to prostitutes in Soho. But this is Soho. We all live next door to prostitutes.”