Belt the following year. In 1975, he helped to establish the Black Theatre of Brixton. In 1975, Beaton played Nanki-Poo in The Black Mikado, a modern version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. In 1976, Beaton broke into television in the series The Fosters, which also featured a young Lenny Henry, and the following year played the lead role in a low-budget independent film about a West Indian community in London, Black Joy, for his role in which he was named Film Actor of the Year in 1978 by the Variety Club of Great Britain. He also appeared in the BBC TV series Empire Road (written by Michael Abbensetts). However, it was Beaton's six-year run (from 1988) in the Channel Four television comedy series Desmond's (written by Trix Worrell), as the title character Desmond Ambrose, that would become his best-known role. For Desmond's he received the Royal Television Society Best Comedy Performer Award. He played the lead role of Willie Boy in the 1987 TV comedy Playing Away (directed by Horace Ové, from a screenplay by Caryl Phillips), about a West Indian cricket team invited to play a rural white team. Beaton also appeared in several movies, including The Mighty Quinn (1989). He appeared as a guest on The Cosby Show in 1991 (episode: "There's Still No Joy in Mudville"), and in the 1994 television serial Little Napoleons. His autobiography, Beaton But Unbowed, was published in 1986. Death On 13 December 1994, after years of hard living began taking its toll on his health, Beaton retired to his home city of Georgetown, Guyana (just as his character in Desmond's was doing the same), where he collapsed at the airport from a heart attack and died a few hours later on 13 December 1994 at the age of 60. He was survived by five children from three marriages. It was announced in Porkpie – the spin-off series to Desmond's – that Beaton's character, Desmond, had died approximately 11 months before the spin-off's first episode. Personal life Beaton was married and divorced three times, and had four children with his first wife – two children born in Guyana, two in the UK – and one child with his second wife. Norman spent many years living in Brixton with Jane Cash, whom he referred to as "the wife he never had". Jane died in 2020. He married Jean Davenport in 1988, but they