Derek Ware: Actor and stunt choreographer behind the Mini chase in 'The Italian Job'

Derek Ware was an actor who found his greatest success as a screen stunt performer and coordinator; he became widely regarded as the best in the business during the 1960s and 70s.

He made his first impact on television in the opening Doctor Who story, in 1963, and contributed action to the Gallifreyan Time Lord's adventures over the next eight years. For that first one, “An Unearthly Child”, he arranged a fight between cavemen. Other combat scenes followed, including one with scimitars, as well as a Covent Garden massacre.

After forming his own stunt agency, Havoc, he hired out riders, drivers, fallers and expert horse riders to Doctor Who and other productions. They were particularly spectacular during a helicopter hi-jack in the 1970 story “The Ambassadors of Death”. Ware doubled for various actors over the years, and had nine credited parts himself under three incarnations of the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee.

His fighting and horse-riding skills came to the fore in Culloden (1964), director Peter Watkins's remarkable BBC dramatisation, filmed in documentary style, of the last pitched battle on British soil. The action was chillingly real and Ware later had to deny accusations that tripwires were used to make horses fall.

He worked with Watkins again on The War Game (1965), a film that imagined the aftermath of a nuclear attack. However, it was banned by the BBC and not shown for 20 years. At the time, the Corporation said it was too horrific, but media academic Michael Tracey later discovered, while researching a biography of director-general Hugh Greene, that the BBC had bowed to political pressure from the government, which had a policy of nuclear deterrence.

In a more conventionally cinematic environment, Ware played the corporal who is best man at the wedding of Terence Stamp's Sergeant Troy to Julie Christie's Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). More importantly, he taught the left-handed Stamp to use a military sabre in his right hand and to ride a horse. Ware also revealed to me in 1999 that the actor, in trying to lop off a curl of Christie's hair, accidentally “biffed her in the face”, leaving a small abrasion.

Another fondly remembered British film to which Ware contributed was The Italian Job (1969). He not only acted as Rozzer, one of the “jobbers” hijacking the gold van, but also organised the memorable Mini chase.

Later, he coordinated the daredevil stunts that Michael Crawford, as the hapless Frank Spencer, did himself for the first two series (1973) of the television sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. However, Ware's pupil did not always follow his instructions. Once, instead of diving through a glass window with his fists clenched together, his head tucked down in between his elbows and going into a roll, Crawford went through sideways, with one arm out, turning his head to the camera. Ware told me in 1990: “I began to realise why and he said to me, 'If I go through as you say, viewers can't see my face and they'll think we're using a double.'”

Ware was born into a show-business family in Manchester. His father, Arthur, and mother, Kathleen (née Holland-Thomas), both performed in variety theatres under the stage names Frank Wayne and Stella Courtney. However, they split up when he was young and Ware followed his mother around the country, living in foster homes and attending dozens of schools. At times, he stayed with his grandmother in Blackpool.

Performing was in the blood – and Ware made his television debut in the BBC comedy sketch series Such Is Life in 1950, aged 12. On leaving school, he trained at Rada, then acted in repertory theatres across Britain.

While playing three roles in the Shakespeare anthology series An Age of Kings (1960), he began taking an interest in fight arranging. Ware added other stunts to his repertoire and worked on many popular series, from Adam Adamant Lives! (1966-67) and Last of the Summer Wine (1985-86) to Hannay (1988) and The Bill (1989).

For 15 years, he was Ronnie Barker's stunt double on screen. When the apprehensive comedy actor once refused to sit astride a horse to sing a parody of traditional hunting songs for The Two Ronnies (1971-87), Ware came up with an unconventional solution. “I suggested he threw his legs over my shoulders and I would make movements appropriate to a thoroughbred hunter anxious to join in the hunt,” Ware told Barker's biographer, Richard Webber. “Ronnie agreed and we made for a very convincing pair.”

Ware was forced to close Havoc in the 1970s after objections from Equity union members about his being both a stunt performer and an agent.

His career ended when he sustained a back injury after being thrown from a horse while shooting a beer commercial in 1990. He subsequently taught stage swordplay at the Birmingham School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art and the Arts Educational Schools, London. For many years, the Derek Ware Prize was awarded at Rada for the best fight based around a classical text.

Ware, who died of cancer, is survived by his wife, Maureen. They had no children.

Derek Arthur Ware, actor and stunt performer and arranger: born Manchester 27 February 1938; married 1980 Maureen Mason; died Eastbourne, East Sussex 22 September 2015.