Henri Szeps, star of the ABC’s Mother and Son, dies aged 81

Henri Szeps, who starred in the original version of classic ABC sitcom Mother and Son, has died. He was 81.

Szeps played Robert Beare, a philandering, mustachioed dentist, opposite Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell from 1984 to 1994. He also starred in the racy soap opera Number 96; the medical dramas A Country Practice, GP and All Saints; and war drama Vietnam, in which he played prime minister Harold Holt opposite a young Nicole Kidman.

Henri Szeps was loved by the public and his peers.

Szeps revealed during a 2021 television appearance with his son Josh that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He had lived in a residential care facility since 2023.

The actor was beloved by the public and his peers for the intensity, audacity and variety of his performances. Trained in “the Method” at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre – where a green room is now named in his honour – he made a name for himself in a 1968 production of The Boys in the Band. It was there that he met his future wife, the actress Mary Ann Severne, who was by his side when he died on Wednesday.

Aged in their 20s, the pair moved to London, where they became prominent members of the 1970s acting scene. Szeps starred in I, Claudius alongside David Warner and toured in the Prospect Theatre Company with Derek Jacobi.

Returning to Australia for his 30th birthday, he became a fixture of Australian stage and television. Geoffrey Atherden’s Mother and Son was voted the best Australian television program ever, and Szeps lovingly called his character, Robert, “the arsehole of the family”.

The son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, Szeps was born in a Swiss refugee camp in 1943. His father had already left the family to join the French Resistance and his mother had Henri fostered out to a Swiss couple when he was a baby. He lived with the couple on and off until 1949.

He was then reclaimed by his mother, Rose, but due to illness, he spent time in a French orphanage until 1951, when he migrated to Australia with his mother and younger sister Maria.

Szeps first studied acting at the Ensemble Theatre, where he appeared on stage in productions such as The Apple Cart and Don’t Drink the Water. His early TV breakthroughs came in the police drama Homicide and the children’s series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

He also played an arch villain in the TV version of Mission: Impossible starring Peter Graves, and a French plantation owner opposite Glenn Close and Harry Connick Jr in South Pacific.

Szeps with Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell in a 1985 episode of Mother and Son.

On the big screen, Barry Humphries tapped Szeps to play a down-on-his-luck scientist, Charles Herpes, in Les Patterson Saves the World (Szeps also played his own twin sister, a dolled-up nightclub singer named Desiree). He starred in beloved films like Run, Rebecca, Run and Warming Up, and forged a lifelong friendship with Rumpole of the Bailey’s Leo McKern on the set of playwright David Williamson’s Travelling North. (Szeps had created the same character, Saul, in the original stage production.)

His theatre performances ranged from Gandalf in a stage production of The Hobbit to Sigmund Freud in the award-winning Freud’s Last Session; Glengarry Glen Ross; Twelve Angry Men; Sam Mendes’ reboot of Cabaret with Tina Arena and Toby Allen, for which Szeps won a Helpmann Award for best male actor in a supporting role in a musical; and many other musicals and plays.

He cherished his long collaboration with Williamson, with whom he also worked on Celluloid Heroes, Dead White Males, Heretic and Cruise Control.

Despite an invitation to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, Szeps resisted the temptation to advance his career abroad, for the sake of his family. The final chapter of his showbiz life was defined by a string of sold-out, semi-autobiographical one-man shows that he developed and wrote at his original stamping ground, the Ensemble Theatre.

Szeps and wife Mary Ann Severne in 2004.Credit: Getty Images

He jokingly described himself as a travelling troubadour on national tours of I’m Not a Dentist, Why Kids?, and Wish I’d Said That. The first two scripts were published as a compendium book, One Life, Two Journeys. He also wrote a book on the craft of acting and the art of good comic timing, entitled All In Good Timing.

By the time Szeps finished the run of his final play – Williamson’s Cruise Control – at the age of 70, he concluded that his memory was no longer up to the task, and retired from the stage.

Szeps also studied electrical engineering at Sydney University and married Severne in 1969. The couple have two sons – Amos, a psychologist and master coach, and Josh, a broadcaster and journalist – and four grandchildren.

He was awarded many acting prizes and received an Order of Australia Medal in 2001.

Funeral details are yet to be announced.

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