Vivian Arthur Rivers Malet was an English actor. His Disney roles included Mr. Dawes Jr. in Mary Poppins, Sir James Fryar-Smythe in the Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color episode "The Further Adventures of Gallegher: The Big Swindle", Umbrella Man in Lt. Robin Crusoe USN, Mr. Widdenfield and the museum guard in the restored 25th-anniversary version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, King Eidilleg in The Black Cauldron, a diner patron in Dick Tracy, and an uncredited role in The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin.
Malet was born in 1927 in Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, England. He emigrated to the United States in the 1950s, and began acting onstage before coming into prominence in the 1960s as a character actor, often playing characters much older than his real age. Such films included The Man from Galveston, Munster, Go Home!, In the Heat of the Night, Vanishing Point, The Culpepper Cattle Co, Young Frankenstein, Heaven Can Wait, Halloween (1978), Oh, God! You Devil, City Heat, Hook, Toys, and A Little Princess (1995) as well as voiceover roles in the Don Bluth films The Secret of NIMH and Anastasia.
His appearances on television included episodes of The Donna Reed Show, The Rifleman, Adventures in Paradise, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Bewitched, Wonder Woman, Dallas, Columbo, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, The Virginian, Ned and Stacey, Days of Our Lives, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rawhide, Dr. Kildare, The Untouchables, Dennis the Menace, Easy Street, Mr. Belvedere, The Facts of Life, CHiPs, Barney Miller, Hart to Hart, Charlie's Angels, McCloud, The Waltons, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Love, American Style, Night Gallery, Bonanza, My Favorite Martian, Mission: Impossible, I Dream of Jeannie, Mod Squad, The Wild Wild West, The Monkees, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
He died on May 18, 2013, in Santa Monica California, at the age of 85.