By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent Published: 5:31PM GMT 19 Feb 2010  Lionel Jeffries as Grandpa Potts during filming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Photo: GETTY  Although he played the father of Dick van Dyke's character Caractacus Potts in the hit 1968 film, it was actually Jeffries who was the younger man, albeit by just six months.  He later remarked: "Dick Van Dyke was older than me and I was playing his dad."  Jeffries also directed the 1970 film of The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter.  The son of two East End Salvation Army members, his used to edit home-made films with his father, who owned a cine camera.  Jeffries went bald early, which he blamed on serving in Burma during the Second World War. He said it fell out because he was sweating so much in the jungle heat.  However, he turned his hair loss to his advantage, becoming renowned in theatre and later on the screen for his bald head and bristling moustache.  After the war he trained at Rada before working in reparatory theatre.  In 1953 came his first major film role, besides Sir John Mills and Eric Portman in The Colditz Story.  By the mid 1950s his career was in full swing. Over the following years he appeared in many films, including Blue Murder at St Trinians and The Trials of Oscar Wilde, in which he played the Marquis of Queensbury.  He excelled as a comic actor, stealing scenes from Peter Sellers in the 1963 film The Wrong Arm of the Law. His incompetent police officer who was more than a foil to Sellers' hopeless crook.  While the 1950s and 60s were his acting heyday, he achieved notable success as a director. One of his most significant achievements was writing the screenplay for, and then directing, the film version of E Nesbit's much-loved book, The Railway Children. In 1972 he directed another popular family film, The Amazing Mr Blunden.  Over his 50 year acting career the lantern-jawed Jeffries made more than 100 film appearances, as well as working in television. He recently made a guest appearance in the BBC drama Holby City.
Lionel Jeffries, the actor and film director best known for playing    Grandfather Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! has died. He was 83.