Jack Ellis (actor)
British actor
John Stuart Ellis (born 4 June 1955) is a British theatre and television actor from London, best known for his portrayal of villainous prison officer Jim Fenner in the TV series Bad Girls. He has also appeared in ITV soap Coronation Street as bookmaker Harry Mason.
He and his former wife Christine Kavanagh, from whom he is now divorced, have two children, Theo and Alice. Theo is the bassist in the Mercury Prize-winning band Wolf Alice. He was educated at Highgate School as were his older brothers Robin Ellis, also an actor, and Peter Ellis, a director.
Biography
Prior to Bad Girls, Ellis's most prominent TV role was Detective Inspector Muddyman in Prime Suspect. Ellis was also seen in Heartbeat, and has appeared in many TV series, including in The Fugitives (2005), playing the part of Salko; Blue Murder in the episode "Steady Eddie", portraying Dan Fulford; Highlander: The Series; and in the film Hunter, where he played the lead role.
Ellis is one of the few performers to have acted in both Inspector Morse and its spin-off series Lewis. His first major part since Bad Girls came in summer 2006; Ellis appeared in several episodes of ITV drama Where the Heart Is as businessman Robert Ashford.
In 1994, Ellis played the part of Eddie Barton, a senior HM Customs & Excise Investigation Division officer based at Heathrow Airport, who had to retire through ill health caused by motor neurone disease in all seven episodes of series one of The Knock.
The public source identifies “Jack Ellis (actor)” as british actor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jack, Ellis and actor.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6112339. VIAF identifies the subject as 300972717. The Library of Congress control number is no2013051559. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2005, 2006 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jack Ellis (actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.