Character actor Stratford Johns was best known for his unusual "half head of hair." The South African-born Johns spent most of his forty years before the camera in villainous, unsympathetic characterizations. Some of his better-known film roles include Bradshaw in Cromwell (1970) and Piso in the British TV miniseries I, Claudius. Stratford Johns gained a whole slew of fans when he was "humanized"as the police inspector in the immensely popular BBC cop series Z Cars; he repeated this character (now promoted to police superintendent) in the spin-off series Softly Softly.