Actor and star of Bewitched

Born: May 11, 1927;

Died: December 14, 2016

BERNARD Fox, who has died aged 89, was a Welsh-born actor who was known for his regular appearances on the TV comedy Bewitched. He also had the distinction of appearing in two films about the Titanic disaster: A Night to Remember in 1958 and James Cameron's Titanic 40 years later.

He appeared in Bewitched as Dr Bombay, a colourful warlock who would regularly turn up at the home of Samantha, a witch played by Elizabeth Montgomery who has married a mortal and is trying to live an ordinary life. The show, which also starred Dick York, ran for eight seasons between 1964 and 1972.

Fox's appearance in A Night to Remember came very early in his career and he only had one line - "Iceberg dead ahead sir!". But in 1997's Titanic, he had a major role as Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, although he remembered the experience of making the film, which involved pumping sea water into the set, as very gruelling.

Fox was born in Port Talbot in Wales, the son of two stage actors, and after serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, began to establish his career as a television actor in the UK, appearing in Dixon of Dock Green, Armchair Theatre and other popular shows of the time.

By the 1960s, he had moved to America and was appearing on The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Dream of Jeanie. He also worked as a voice artist on The Flintstones and the Disney film The Rescuers.

He played the bumbling Colonel Crittendon on the popular 60s sitcom Hogan's Heroes before landing the part of Dr Bombay, which he said he based on an officer he had encountered while in the Navy.

"He was the officer in charge of the camp that we were in, and it was an all-male camp, and one evening, I was on duty and six Women's Royal Naval Service arrived to be put up," he recalled.

"So I went to this officer and said, 'What shall I do?' And he said, 'Oh, I don't know, give 'em a hot bran mash, some clean straw and bed 'em down for the night.' And I thought, 'What a great way to play Dr Bombay' .

"If I'd just gone for an ordinary doctor, you wouldn't have heard any more about it. But because I made him such a colourful character, that's why they wanted him back; he was easy to write for. They came up with the idea of him coming from different parts of the world all the time and in different costumes; that was their idea. The puns, I came up with, and in those days, they let you do that."

The character - who was summoned by the phrase "Dr. Bombay, calling Dr. Bombay. Emergency, come right away" - later appeared in the spin-off from Bewitched, Tabitha, which featured Samantha's daughter and ran for one season from 1977 until 1978.

Fox's other credits included appearances on Murder, She Wrote, Hart to Hart and MASH. He also appeared in the 1999 film The Mummy.

He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, daughter Amanda, daughter-in-law Lisa and two grandchildren. Another daughter, Valerie, died in 2006.