Paul Nicholas

Born in Peterborough, Paul Nicholas is an actor, singer, director and producer whose career has moved remarkably freely between pop music, landmark West End musicals, film, television comedy and theatre production. From playing Jesus and the Rum Tum Tugger to winning a BAFTA as Vince Pinner, he has remained a familiar presence in British entertainment for more than six decades.

Peterborough beginnings

Paul Nicholas was born Paul Oscar Beuselinck in Peterborough on 3 December 1944. His professional life would develop largely beyond the city, but Peterborough remains the starting point of a career that has encompassed almost every part of popular entertainment.

His father, Oscar Beuselinck, worked as an entertainment lawyer, giving Nicholas an early awareness of the professional world surrounding music, film and show business. Rather than using his distinctive family name on stage, the young performer experimented with several different identities as he attempted to establish himself.

He first performed as Paul Dean before adopting the single name Oscar. It was only later that he settled permanently on Paul Nicholas, the name under which he would become known on stage, screen and record.

The road into music

Nicholas began his career during the early 1960s, when British pop music was being transformed by rock and roll, rhythm and blues and the emergence of a new generation of groups. Performing as Paul Dean, he formed Paul Dean and the Dreamers and became associated with Screaming Lord Sutch and his backing group, the Savages.

He subsequently released records as Oscar through Robert Stigwood’s Reaction label. One of the most intriguing survivals from this period is Over the Wall We Go, a satirical song written by the young David Bowie and recorded by Nicholas in 1967.

Nicholas later recalled that the song, which made fun of a series of highly publicised prison escapes, was considered too outrageous for regular BBC exposure. It did not give him the breakthrough hit he wanted, but it created an enduring connection between two young performers still searching for their places in the music industry.

His early recording career was commercially uncertain, but it brought him into Robert Stigwood’s creative circle. That association helped direct Nicholas towards the newly developing world of rock musicals, where his abilities as both an actor and singer could be used together.

West End breakthroughs

Nicholas’s theatrical breakthrough came with the London production of Hair. Opening in 1968, the show became a symbol of the counterculture and helped change expectations about what a West End musical could look and sound like. Nicholas played Claude, one of its central roles.

His next major role placed him at the centre of another landmark production. On 9 August 1972, the original London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar opened at the Palace Theatre, with Nicholas playing Jesus, Stephen Tate as Judas and Dana Gillespie as Mary Magdalene.

The production ran for eight years and became the longest-running musical in West End history at that time. As the first performer to play Jesus in the West End production, Nicholas helped establish one of musical theatre’s most demanding and recognisable roles.

He then took over the part of Danny Zuko in the London production of Grease, playing opposite Elaine Paige as Sandy. The pairing put two emerging British musical-theatre stars at the head of a show that would become an international phenomenon.

In 1981, Nicholas joined another historic original London cast when he created the role of the flamboyant Rum Tum Tugger in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. His performance also appeared on the original London cast recording.

Few performers can claim leading roles in the original London histories of Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Cats, three productions that helped redefine the modern musical.

Film roles and pop success

Alongside his stage work, Nicholas developed a distinctive screen career. His early films included See No Evil and Stardust, but some of his best-remembered cinema roles came through director Ken Russell.

In Russell’s 1975 adaptation of the Who’s rock opera Tommy, Nicholas played Cousin Kevin, the cruel relative who torments the title character. In the same year he portrayed composer Richard Wagner in Russell’s extravagant musical fantasy Lisztomania.

Further films included Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The World Is Full of Married Men and the 1980 adaptation of The Jazz Singer.

During the mid-1970s, Nicholas also achieved the chart success that had eluded him earlier in his career. According to the Official Charts Company, he secured four UK Top 40 singles:

• Reggae Like It Used to Be, which reached number 17 in 1976
• Dancing with the Captain, which reached number eight in 1976
• Grandma’s Party, which reached number nine in 1977
• Heaven on the 7th Floor, which reached number 40 in 1977

Heaven on the 7th Floor enjoyed much greater success internationally, including a number six placing in the United States and number one in New Zealand. Nicholas had finally become a successful recording artist, although acting and musical theatre continued to provide the foundation of his career.

Just Good Friends and a BAFTA

Nicholas became a television household name in 1983 when he was cast as Vince Pinner in John Sullivan’s BBC romantic sitcom Just Good Friends.

The series followed Vince and Penny Warrender, played by Jan Francis, after they met again five years after he had abandoned her on their wedding day. Its blend of romantic tension, family comedy and emotional uncertainty gave both central performers opportunities to move between broad comedy and more vulnerable drama.

The programme ran for three series between 1983 and 1986, together with a feature-length Christmas special. Nicholas also sang its memorable theme song.

His performance received formal recognition at the 1984 British Academy Television Awards. BAFTA’s archive records Nicholas as the winner of the Light Entertainment Performance award for Just Good Friends, ahead of nominees including Judi Dench, Lenny Henry, Julia McKenzie and Ruth Madoc.

Vince Pinner remains Paul Nicholas’s defining television role: charming, unreliable and human enough to make a former romantic villain into one of the most familiar sitcom characters of the 1980s.

An enduring acting career

Following Just Good Friends, Nicholas continued to move between television, theatre, film and touring productions. He starred in the comedy-drama Bust and the family sitcom Close to Home, while later television appearances included Sunburn, Burnside, Doctors, Heartbeat, The Bill and Holby City.

His stage roles have ranged from Gilbert and Sullivan to major touring musicals. He played the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, the title role in Doctor Dolittle and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He also appeared in productions of Jekyll & Hyde, Guys and Dolls, And Then There Were None and A Christmas Carol.

In 2015, he joined EastEnders as Gavin Sullivan, the controlling husband of Kathy Beale and biological father of Sharon Watts. The role allowed Nicholas to play a markedly darker character than the charming Vince Pinner, and he remained in the programme until 2016.

He appeared as himself in the second series of the BBC travel programme The Real Marigold Hotel in 2017, followed by several editions of The Real Marigold on Tour. He later returned to the story’s fictional world by playing Douglas in the touring stage adaptation of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel during 2022 and 2023.

Producer and director

Nicholas’s career also expanded behind the scenes. During the early 1990s, he developed a producing partnership with David Ian after the pair worked together on The Pirates of Penzance.

Their work included a successful twentieth-anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, reconnecting Nicholas with the production that had established him as a West End leading man.

He became closely involved in major productions of Grease, including West End, touring and Broadway versions. His producing and creative credits also included The Rocky Horror Show, Singin’ in the Rain and Saturday Night Fever.

Nicholas collaborated with Robert Stigwood and choreographer Arlene Phillips in adapting Saturday Night Fever for the stage. The production opened in London in 1998 and subsequently transferred to Broadway.

He has also worked as a director on productions including Tommy, Keeler and the musical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities. This work enabled him to apply decades of experience as a performer to the development and presentation of new theatrical productions.

Later work and legacy

In 2021, Nicholas published his autobiography, Musicals, Marigolds & Me. The book reflects the unusual breadth of a life spent moving between popular music, theatre, film and television, with personal memories of figures including David Bowie, Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

He returned to the West End in 2024 as the Major in John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers: The Play at the Apollo Theatre. He remained associated with the production during its subsequent West End season and UK and Ireland tour.

Paul Nicholas’s career resists any single description. He has been a 1960s recording artist, a pioneering rock-musical performer, a pop-chart regular, a BAFTA-winning sitcom actor, a screen villain, a theatrical producer and an enduring West End presence.

From Peterborough to some of the most important musicals in West End history, Paul Nicholas has built his career upon reinvention, moving between performer, producer and director without losing the unmistakable personality that made him a household name.