"Shut up and listen! Don't get too close to your schoolmates. Only make friends with those who are better off. They can be of use to you. Above all, never part with a red cent! Your friends will betray you, but money never will."
—Strindler's Father

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Edward Felix Tudor-Pole (A.K.A. "Edward Tenpole" and "Ten Pole Tudor"; born 6 December 1955) is an English musician, television presenter and actor, and has joined the Cox company to play the role of Strindler's father: the despicable character who abandons his son in the snowstorm sequence which Phil Tippett will animate. Director Alex Cox says this about Pole: "Ed's day job is, of course, rock'n'roll. He became the lead singer of the Sex Pistols after J. Lydon quit, and currently tours with The Vikings. He is an actor of some repute, having starred in Absolute Beginners, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker, and other films. He is also the rightful heir to the English throne, recently stolen by the usurper, Chuck."

Tudor-Pole was born on 6 December 1955 in Lambeth, London, to David W. and Shirley C. (née Brown) Tudor-Pole. The family's name derives from that of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk (great-grandson of Geoffrey Chaucer), via Tudor-Pole's grandfather, spiritualist Wellesley Tudor Pole. Ed says, "The Pole bit goes back hundreds of years, to the Norman Conquest. I'm really Edward Pole but my great-grandfather did some genealogy and worked out some connection with the royal house of Tudor, so he added Tudor to the Pole. So it's a bit bogus really, you can blame my grandfather! Hence the name." Wellesley's mother added the 'Tudor' to her son's name.
Tudor-Pole was educated at Pennthorpe School, Rudgwick, Sussex, and King Edward's School in Witley, Surrey. He later attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tudor-Pole formed the band Tenpole Tudor in 1977. He said, "I'd been in one band, called the Visitors. I'd just left drama school and the punk thing was just erupting. I answered an advert in the Melody Maker, which said 'Wild front man wanted.' I thought, that's me! I got the job, we did a few gigs and got a few fans." Eventually Ed came to prominence after appearing in the film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle as a possible replacement for John Lydon (AKA "Johnny Rotten") in the Sex Pistols. "One of the Visitors, Chris I think, phoned me up ... saying the Sex Pistols are auditioning for a new singer, why don't you go for it, Ed? If he hadn't phoned me up I wouldn't have known about it and wouldn't have gone along. So I just went along to the audition for the Rock 'n' Roll Swindle." Ed first auditioned for Julien Temple before singing with the band: "I walked onto that stage and commanded the room, and said 'Hello, I'm Ten Tudor-Pole, are these the auditions for Hamlet?!' and they all laughed." In the film and on the soundtrack, Ed sang "Who Killed Bambi?" (which he co-wrote with Vivienne Westwood), "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" (which he performed with Pistols Sid, Steve and Paul) and a cover version of "Rock Around the Clock" a few weeks later (with only Steve and Paul; Sid was in New York by then with Nancy). "As far as I was concerned I'd got the job. I was now the new singer of the Sex Pistols. And then on the advert for Who Killed Bambi, which was rush released, it said introducing Ten Pole Tudor. My reality then was that I was the new singer. My heart was in my mouth. In a way I didn't want to be the second Johnny Rotten. I thought I can't compete with Johnny Rotten, but I wasn't going to get off the train." The band only lasted for about five rehearsals, then broke up when Sid passed away. "When Sid died everything stopped. Obviously people were in a state of shock, and that was the end. But I got a bit of money out of the publishing company Warners, for 'Who Killed Bambi.'" Tenpole Tudor returned in 1980, signing to Stiff Records and releasing two successful albums, Eddie, Old Bob, Dick and Gary and Let the Four Winds Blow, and had a UK Top 10 hit with "Swords of a Thousand Men" which he performed on Top of the Pops in May 1981.

Tudor-Pole has appeared in numerous films and plays, and was the presenter on The Crystal Maze replacing Richard O'Brien from 1993 until the show's hiatus in 1995 (he also replaced him in a little play O'Brien wrote called The Rocky Horror Show). Beyond The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), he appeared in Absolute Beginners (1986), Drowning by Numbers (1988), White Hunter Black Heart (1990) with Clint Eastwood, Princess Caraboo (1994), Between the Lines (1992) playing a Liverpudlian villain (this time NOT Johnny Rotten), and several films by Alex Cox, including Sid and Nancy (still not Johnny Rotten, 1986), Straight to Hell (1987) and Walker (1987). His appearance in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Mr Borgin, the owner of Borgin and Burke's store, was cut from the theatrical release, but is included in the extended edition DVD. He also appeared as a ranting street preacher in season two of Game of Thrones.

He lives in London and has one son.

NOTES ON THIS PAGE

¹—"Update 8: Ed is On Board" by Alex Cox, 7/19/2024.