With his bald head, firm jawline and bristling moustache, Lionel Jeffries played a nice line of English eccentrics. This belied his RADA training. Following military service in WWII, he played his major roles - everything from Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) to the Marquis of Queensberry in El hombre del clavel verde (1960) - in the 1960s.His surprisingly brief career as a director included the highly popular family films The Railway Children (1970) and Los fantasmas de la casa encantada (1972).Despite Lionel's parents being in the Salvation Army he was weaned on films as his father, out of what little money they got, bought him a small film camera and projector. At the age of 5 he was helping to to edit films. He went bald while he was in Burma during the war after which he spent 2 -3 years in rep at Lichfield. The only time he wore a toupee was in the film 'The secret of my Success'in which the character he played aged from a young man to an old one. out of the 150 or so films that he made he considered 'The Long Ships' was the worst.