Anthony Sharp was a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and made his stage debut in February 1938 with HV Neilson's Shakespearean touring company, playing the Sergeant in Macbeth at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.

Repertory engagements in Wigan, Hastings, Peterborough and Liverpool were followed by war service, after which he resumed his stage career at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate in September 1946, playing Hansell in Tangent.

"Anthony Sharp's altogether delightful adaptation provided one of the most unusual as well as most amusing offerings of the season," commented Theatre World editor Frances Stephens.

[2] After a try-out in Sheffield in October 1954, the historical drama The Conscience of the King was remounted at the Theatre Royal Windsor in March 1955; in the second production Sharp himself played 17th century parliamentarian John Hampden.

[1] Sharp was frequently cast as supercilious professional or aristocratic types, notably in the Stanley Kubrick films A Clockwork Orange (as Minister of the Interior) and Barry Lyndon (as Lord Hallam).

Other TV dramas in which he appeared included Angel Pavement, The Plane Makers, Doomwatch, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Crown Court, Upstairs, Downstairs, Schalcken the Painter and The Life and Times of David Lloyd George.

He worked frequently with such TV comedians as Benny Hill, Morecambe and Wise, Frankie Howerd and Bernie Winters, and towards the end of his life appeared in the early-1980s alternative comedy programmes The Young Ones and The Comic Strip.