Norman Wisdom: Difference between revisions

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Trident13 (talk | contribs)
103,559 edits
Trident13 (talk | contribs)
103,559 edits
→‎Biography: add ref
Line 16: Line 16:


==Biography==
==Biography==
Norman J Wisdom was born in the [[London]] district of [[Marylebone]] to Frederick and Maud Wisdom (nee Targett), who married in Marylebone in 1912. His father was a [[chauffeur]] and his mother a [[dressmaker]]. Wisdom’s mother left when he was nine, and he and his brother were left in the charge of their father, who disowned them. After a period in a [[Foster care|childrens home]], Wisdom ran away from home when he was 11, but returned to become an errand boy with a grocery store on leaving school at 13. Later he was a coal-miner, a [[waiter]], a [[pageboy]] and a cabin-boy, he later claimed all the work at such a young age led to his left leg being half an inch (1.25 cm) shorter than his right.
Norman J Wisdom was born in the [[London]] district of [[Marylebone]] to Frederick and Maud Wisdom (nee Targett), who married in Marylebone in 1912. His father was a [[chauffeur]] and his mother a [[dressmaker]]. Wisdom’s mother left when he was nine, and after his parents divorced he and his brother were left in the charge of their father, who disowned them. After a period in a [[Foster care|childrens home]] in [[Deal, Kent]], Wisdom ran away from home when he was 11, but returned to become an errand boy with a grocery store on leaving school at 13. Later he was a coal-miner, a [[waiter]], a [[pageboy]] and a cabin-boy in the [[Merchant Navy]]. He later claimed all the work at such a young age led to his left leg being half an inch (1.25 cm) shorter than his right.


===British Army===
===British Army===
On the outbreak of [[World War Two]], Wisdom joined the [[10th Hussars]] unit of the [[British Army]], and saw service in [[India]]. Like many away from home, he discovered his talent for entertainment. Wisdom discovered his while performing a comedy [[boxing]] routine in an army gym,<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3751896.stm Sir Norman takes final stage bow] BBC News - 18 October, 2004</ref> and began to develop his talents as a [[musician]] and [[performance art|stage]] [[entertainer]].
On the outbreak of [[World War Two]], Wisdom joined the [[10th Hussars]] unit of the [[British Army]], and saw service in [[India]]. Like many away from home, he discovered his talent for entertainment. Wisdom discovered his while performing a comedy [[boxing]] routine in an army gym,<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3751896.stm Sir Norman takes final stage bow] BBC News - 18 October, 2004</ref> and began to develop his talents as a [[musician]] and [[performance art|stage]] [[entertainer]].


From 1943 through to 1945, he joined the [[Royal Corps of Signals]] at the Moray House Hotel (now the Carlton Hotel) in [[Cheltenham]], [[Gloucestershire]]. After a charity concert at the [[Cheltenham Town Hall]], actor [[Rex Harrison]] came backstage and urged him to turn professional.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/3086186.stm Plaque marks comic's time in forces] BBC News - 6 September, 2003</ref>
Becoming a [[bandsman]] to persue his interests,<ref name="BBCFool">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/779888.stm Sir Norman: Nobody's fool] BBC News - 6 June, 2000</ref> he joined the [[Royal Corps of Signals]] in 1943 at the Moray House Hotel (now the Carlton Hotel) in [[Cheltenham]], [[Gloucestershire]]. After a charity concert at the [[Cheltenham Town Hall]], actor [[Rex Harrison]] came backstage and urged him to turn professional.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/3086186.stm Plaque marks comic's time in forces] BBC News - 6 September, 2003</ref>


===Theatre===
===Theatre===
Leaving the Army in [[1946]], Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the advanced age of 31 - but his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. A [[West End theatre|West End]] star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. By this time, he had adopted the suit that would remain his trademark - tweed cap askew with peak turned up, too-tight jacket, barely-better trousers, crumpled collar and tie awry. The character known as "the Gump" was to dominate Wisdom's film career.
Leaving the Army in [[1946]], Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the advanced age of 31 - but his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. Initially the [[straight man]] to the [[magician]] [[David Nixon]],<ref name="BBCFool"/> he had adopted the suit that would remain his trademark - tweed cap askew with peak turned up, too-tight jacket, barely-better trousers, crumpled collar and tie awry. The character known as "the Gump" was the perfect antidote to the bleak austerity of post-war Britain, and was to dominate Wisdom's film career.

A [[West End theatre|West End]] star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. [[Charlie Chaplin|Sir Charlie Chaplin]] called Wisdom his ''"favourite clown."''<ref name="BBCFool"/>


===Film career===
===Film career===

Revision as of 20:09, 27 August 2007

Sir Norman Wisdom, OBE
Born
Norman Wisdom
Years active1948 - 2004, 2007
Height5'2 (five ft two in)
SpouseFreda Simpson (1947-69)

Sir Norman J Wisdom, OBE (born 4 February, 1915) is an English comedian, singer and actor.

Biography

Norman J Wisdom was born in the London district of Marylebone to Frederick and Maud Wisdom (nee Targett), who married in Marylebone in 1912. His father was a chauffeur and his mother a dressmaker. Wisdom’s mother left when he was nine, and after his parents divorced he and his brother were left in the charge of their father, who disowned them. After a period in a childrens home in Deal, Kent, Wisdom ran away from home when he was 11, but returned to become an errand boy with a grocery store on leaving school at 13. Later he was a coal-miner, a waiter, a pageboy and a cabin-boy in the Merchant Navy. He later claimed all the work at such a young age led to his left leg being half an inch (1.25 cm) shorter than his right.

British Army

On the outbreak of World War Two, Wisdom joined the 10th Hussars unit of the British Army, and saw service in India. Like many away from home, he discovered his talent for entertainment. Wisdom discovered his while performing a comedy boxing routine in an army gym,[1] and began to develop his talents as a musician and stage entertainer.

Becoming a bandsman to persue his interests,[2] he joined the Royal Corps of Signals in 1943 at the Moray House Hotel (now the Carlton Hotel) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. After a charity concert at the Cheltenham Town Hall, actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to turn professional.[3]

Theatre

Leaving the Army in 1946, Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the advanced age of 31 - but his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. Initially the straight man to the magician David Nixon,[2] he had adopted the suit that would remain his trademark - tweed cap askew with peak turned up, too-tight jacket, barely-better trousers, crumpled collar and tie awry. The character known as "the Gump" was the perfect antidote to the bleak austerity of post-war Britain, and was to dominate Wisdom's film career.

A West End star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. Sir Charlie Chaplin called Wisdom his "favourite clown."[2]

Film career

Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with Trouble in Store in 1953. Their cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of the films made a generation earlier by George Formby. Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences, and in some unlikely overseas markets, helping Rank stay afloat financially when their more expensive film projects were unsuccessful.

The films usually involved the Gump character in some manual occupation, in which he is barely competent, and in a junior position to a "straight man" superior, often played by Edward Chapman. They benefited from Wisdom's capacity for physical slapstick comedy and his skill at creating a sense of the character's helplessness. The series often contained a romantic subplot; the Gump's inevitable awkwardness with women is a characteristic shared with the earlier Formby vehicles.

By the mid-1960s, despite a move to filming in colour, Wisdom's commercial appeal was in eclipse. The obvious incongruity of a fifty-year old man playing the Prime Minister's grandson in Press for Time (1966) counted against him - though Wisdom's age was inaccurately reported for many years.

Later career

In 1966, Wisdom went to America to star on Broadway in the James Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn musical comedy Walking Happy. His highly-acclaimed performance was Tony nominated. He also completed his first American film as a vaudeville comic in The Night They Raided Minsky's. Any opportunities which might have opened up by this Stateside success were cut short when he had to return to London owing to a family crisis. His subsequent career was largely confined to television and he toured the world with his successful cabaret act.

He won critical acclaim in 1981 for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the play Going Gently, for which he won a BAFTA.[4] On 11 February, 1987 Norman Wisdom was the subject of Thames Television's This Is Your Life for the second time.

He became prominent again in the 1990s, helped by the young comedian Lee Evans, whose act was heavily influenced by Wisdom's work. The highpoint of this new popularity was the knighthood he received in 1999 from Queen Elizabeth II. Also in the 1990s he appeared in the recurring role of Billy Ingleton in the long-running BBC comedy Last Of The Summer Wine. The role was originally a one-off appearance, but proved so popular that he returned as the character on a number of occasions.

In 2004 he made a cameo appearance in Coronation Street playing fitness fanatic pensioner Ernie Crabbe.

After he was knighted, true to his accident-prone persona, he couldn't resist pretending to trip off the platform on his way out.

Popularity in Albania

Wisdom is a well-known and loved cult film icon in Albania and was the only Western actor whose films were allowed in the country during the Communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. Tony Hawks uses this fact to much comic effect in his book and TV series One Hit Wonderland where the two unite, along with Sir Tim Rice to release a single Big In Albania in an attempt to enter the Albanian pop charts. He is known as "Mr. Pitkin" in Albania, after the character he played in his films.

The archetypal Wisdom plot where the common working man gets the better of his bosses was considered ideologically sound by Hoxha. In 1995, he visited the post-Stalinist country, where to his surprise he was greeted by many appreciative fans including the then-president of Albania, Sali Berisha. His fondness for Brighton & Hove Albion is renowned in Albania and consequently there are many 'Seagulls' fans in Albania.

On a visit in 2001 which coincided with the England football team playing Albania in Tirana, his presence at the training ground even eclipsed that of David Beckham.[5]

Retirement

Wisdom announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on his ninetieth birthday, 4 February, 2005. He intends to spend his retirement spending more time with his family, playing golf and driving around the Isle of Man, where he lives; his next door neighbour is actor John Rhys-Davies.

In mid-2006 Wisdom was admitted to hospital after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm. He was in hospital in Liverpool for a few days after he was fitted with a heart pacemaker to steady his heartbeat.[6]

In 2007 he made his return to acting in the independent movie Expresso, shot in January 2007 but premiering at the Cannes Film Festival on the 27 May, 2007. In the film which will raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support and features Dame Judi Dench, Wisdom plays a vicar plagued by a fly in a cafe. The film's producer Nigel Martin Davey gave him only a visual role so he would not have to remember any lines, but on the day Wisdom was alert and had his performance changed to add more laughs.[7]

Personal life

Wisdom married his second wife Freda Simpson in October 1947, and they had his only two children: Nicholas (born 1953) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969, and Wisdom was granted full custody of the children.[8]

Wisdom is a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion F.C.. He enjoys golf[9] and is a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats.

A cultural icon in the Isle of Man, he lived in a house named Ballalough – Gaelic for "house of laughs" - in Andreas for 27 years, becoming involved in the community through both performance and chairty. A lover of cars, he owned a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, until his age and failing health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness to drive test, and they were sold in September 2005.[8]

A supporter of various Manx charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for Manx girl group Twisted Angels for their single called LA in support of local chairty Project 21.[10] There is a bronze statue of Wisdom on a bench outside Douglas Town Hall, Ridgeway Street. In 2007 a Norman Wisdom themed bar opened at the Sefton Hotel, Douglas, called Sir Norman's. It has many pictures of all his films on the walls and TV screens showing some of his old films.

Health decline

In August 2007, Newcastle's Evening Chronicle reported that Sir Norman was in a nursing home, reported in the Daily Mail and the Isle of Man Newspapers to be the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla,[11] where he had become resident from 12 July, 2007.[8]

On release of Espresso to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, due to his suffering from vascular dementia.[7] It was also reported that his children had secured full power of attorney over Sir Norman's affairs, and having sold off his Epsom, Surrey flat[12] were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise monies to fund his longer term care.[8]

In an exclusive interview on the 27 August with the News of the World, journalists were given access to Wisdom's now filling room and routine at the home, where he claimed to be happy and content in a routine which his family and carers considered that kept him safe from the memory losses associated with his condition.[13]

Filmography

CDs and vinyl

  • I Would Like to Put on Record
  • Jingle Jangle
  • The Very Best of Norman Wisdom
  • Androcles and the Lion
  • Where's Charley?
  • Wisdom of a Fool
  • Nobody's Fool
  • Follow a Star
  • 1957 Original Chart Hits
  • Follow a Star/Give Me a Night in June
  • Happy Ending/The Wisdom Of A Fool
  • Big in Albania - One Hit Wonderland

Books

  • Lucky Little Devil: Norman Wisdom on the Island He's Made His Home (2004)
  • My Turn: Autobiography (2002)
  • Don't Laugh At Me / Cos I'm a Fool (1992) (two volumes of autobiography)
  • Trouble in Store (1991)

Norman also played a big part in the Tony Hawks book, One Hit Wonderland. Tony and Norman had a top twenty hit in Albania in 2002 with a song called "Big in Albania" written by Hawks and Oscar-winning lyricist Tim Rice.

References

  1. ^ Sir Norman takes final stage bow BBC News - 18 October, 2004
  2. ^ a b c Sir Norman: Nobody's fool BBC News - 6 June, 2000
  3. ^ Plaque marks comic's time in forces BBC News - 6 September, 2003
  4. ^ Woman quizzed over comic's cash BBC News - 12 September 2005
  5. ^ Clown Prince of Albania - BBC website
  6. ^ "BBC report on fitting of pacemaker". Retrieved 2007-08-12.
  7. ^ a b Sir Norman's swansong is released BBC News - 27 August, 2007
  8. ^ a b c d Keith Beaby and Elizabeth Sanderson Revealed: Why Sir Norman Wisdom's family won't let his friends see him Daily Mail - 11th August 2007
  9. ^ Wooden Spoon Isle of Man
  10. ^ Sir Norman 'launches punk career' BBC News - 23 September, 2005
  11. ^ Comic legend needs time to settle in home, says son IoMtoday.co.im - 12 August, 2007
  12. ^ Comedy legend leaves Epsom flat for good Surrey Comet - 18th August 2007
  13. ^ Tate, Chris GRIM? NOT ME! I'm happy in my care home, legend Norman tells fans News of the World

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norman_Wisdom&oldid=154019606"