Robert Tronson: Director whose television work included 'The Avengers' and 'The Darling Buds of May'

The director Robert Tronson spent most of his working life in television. He brought his relaxed manner, floppy fedora and brightly coloured socks to dozens of sets and locations and was particularly adept with crime dramas, mysteries and adventure series. He worked on such popular programmes as The Avengers (1961), The Saint (1965), Father Brown (1974), Bergerac (1983-88) and Dempsey & Makepeace (1986), but his straightforward manner made him equally at ease with gentler dramas including All Creatures Great and Small (1978-88) and The Darling Buds of May (1991-93).

"He sat there in his big, floppy hat and I think he liked actors," said Moray Watson, who played the Brigadier in The Darling Buds of May, ITV's popular dramatisation of H.E. Bates's novels about a happy-go-lucky, tax-dodging family in rural Kent which starred David Jason as Pop Larkin. "He was one of the old school of directors, using traditional techniques that worked very well and nothing tricksy. He just shot what was there in the script."

Robert du Coudré Tronson was born in Chilmark, Wiltshire in 1924, the son of a naval commander. He attended Dartmouth Naval College from the age of 13 and served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War. In 1946, after working as a theatrical stage manager, he landed a similar job at the BBC. Tronson became a scriptwriter on children's programmes, such as the adventure series At Your Service Ltd (1951), before directing the children's sitcom Happy Holidays (1954), which starred Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier.

In 1955 he moved to Associated-Rediffusion, holder of the London weekday franchise for the newly launched ITV, where he became a prolific director of dramas for the strands "Play of the Week" (1958-64), "Armchair Theatre" (1959-68) and "Television Playhouse" (1960-63). He also directed his own adaptation of A Room with a View (1958). One of his earliest ITV projects was the drama-documentary series Secret Mission (1956), which was about women who worked for the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.

Tronson went freelance, continuing with his television work while making B-films for the cinema, including five thrillers based on novels and short stories by Edgar Wallace which were shown on American television as "The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre". These were Man at the Carlton Tower (1961), Man Detained (1961), Never Back Losers (1961), Number Six (1962) and On the Run (1963).

After The Traitors (an espionage drama about British and American security agents, made in 1962) and the pop star murder drama Farewell Performance (1963), Tronson made the feature film Ring of Spies (1964), which proved controversial. It was based on the Portland Spy Ring case of 1961, which concerned the passing to Russia of secrets from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment in Dorset.

At the time of the picture's release, the suspected KGB agent involved was about to be exchanged for a British spy who had been caught by the Russians. Tronson believed that his film's cinema run had been shortened as a result of pressure from MI5.

He made only one more feature film, Act of Reprisal (1964), a love story set against the background of Cyprus's struggle for independence from Britain, before devoting himself to television. He was in good company while making episodes of the stylish action-adventure series Man in a Suitcase (1967-68), which starred Richard Bradford as a former CIA agent based in London and working as a private investigator and bounty hunter. Other episodes were made by film directors including Charles Crichton and Freddie Francis.

Tronson's other television work included The Baron (1967), Callan (1967-69), Hunter's Walk (1973), the four-part Lord Peter Wimsey detective drama Five Red Herrings (1975), Juliet Bravo (1982), Boon (1987), The Bill (1989), Rumpole of the Bailey (1991-92) and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996-98).

Anthony Hayward

Robert du Coudré Tronson, television and film director: born Chilmark, Wiltshire 18 May 1924; married 1965 Nona Richards (died 1987; one son); died London 27 November 2008.