Towering over the series was the gargantuan figure of Henry himself, played by the hitherto unknown Australian actor Keith Michell, who earned an award for best television actor as a result of his efforts. Michell, who started out as an art teacher, owed the role to Lau­rence Olivier, who had been impressed by Michell while on tour in Australia and had brought him back to England in order to advance his career. The faith the BBC put in the young actor was more than amply rewarded; Michell went to extraordinary lengths to vitalize the larger-than-life character of the king.

     The series was neatly split into six episodes, each one dealing with one of the six wives and tracing their varied experiences and sometimes bloody ends at the hands of one of England's most infamous rulers. The wives were played by Annette Crosbie, Dorothy Tutin, Anne Stallybrass, Elvi Hale, Angela Pleasance, and Rosalie Crutchley. all respected and proven stars of stage and screen. Annette Crosbie, playing Catherine of Aragon. collected an award for best actress for her performance.

     Michell, though, was always the focus of attention. The task for the actor was to portray Henry at the different stages of his life, beginning with the athletic 18- year-old monarch and culminating in the oversized 56-year-old tyrant plagued by a variety of physical ailments. Playing the aging Henry in the later episodes proved the most demanding challenge. Michell, who boasted only half the girth of the real king, spent some four hours each day getting his makeup on and was then unable to take any sustenance except through a straw because of the padding tucked into his cheeks. The impersonation was entirely convincing, however, and critics hailed the attention to detail in costume and sets. No one, it seemed, twigged that Henry's mink robes were really made of rabbit fur or that the fabu­lous jewels studding his hats and coats were humble washers and screws sprayed with paint.

     The lavishness of the costumes and settings and the brilliance of Michell and his co-stars ensured the success of the series. although some viewers expressed reservations. In particular. it was felt by some critics that the underlying theme of the lonely and essentially reasonable man beneath the outrageous outer persona was  perhaps  rather  predictable   and   further   that Michell - who admitted to admiring Henry's  excesses- had a tendency to reduce Henry to caricature (a fault more clearly evident in the film Henry VIII and His Six Wives, which was spawned by the television series in 1972).

     Whatever the criticisms, the success of The Six Wives of Henry VIII brought stardom to Michell and also did much to establish the BBC's cherished reputation  for  ambitious  and historically  authentic costume drama, consolidated  a  year  later  by  the equally  ac­claimed series Elizabeth R, starring Glenda Jackson as Henry's daughter.