'You Dirty Old Man!' E-Book

David Clayton

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 268

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Wilfrid Brambell was one of Britain's most loved and complex character actors. As Albert Ladysmith Steptoe, the unscrupulous rag-and-bone man with questionable habits in Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's long-running Steptoe & Son, he quickly became a household name with co-star Harry H. Corbett. But despite scores of other successes in roles on stage, TV and film, Brambell died a sad and lonely man. Alongside fame and fortune, 'You Dirty Old Man!' reveals how Brambell suffered unbelievable personal heartache, battling an inner turmoil that eventually drove him to drink as his marriage collapsed in the most deceitful circumstances imaginable. His torment led to a secretive life off camera where he did everything possible to stay out of the public eye. Featuring original interviews with film directors Richard Lester, Terence Davies and Tony Palmer, as well as recollections from his own family members, the family of Harry H. Corbett and those who worked alongside him, author David Clayton seeks to re-examine the legacy of a man whose loyal fanbase remains undiminished sixty years on from his heyday.

Leseprobe

For my wife, Sarah, our beautiful daughters,Jaime and Chrissie, and our boy, Harry x

Front cover image: Wilfrid Brambell filming Steptoe & Son on location in North Kensington. (Mirrorpix)

First published 2022

This paperback edition first published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© David Clayton, 2022, 2023

The right of David Clayton to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprintedor reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without the permission in writingfrom the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 139 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

Being Wilfrid

1   A Happy but Turbulent Childhood

2   A Wound that Would Never Heal

3   Old Before His Time

4   An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

5   Fame and Misfortune

6   Back to the Junkyard

7   Passport to Pimlico

8   ‘The Fifth Beatle’

9   ‘Let’s Kill the Old Man Off …’

10   The Ghost of Christmas Present

11   Witchcraft, Carry On and West End Acclaim

12   Steptoe & Son Ride Again

13   Gone Bananas

14   Trouble on Set

15   Glory Days

16   End of an Era?

17   Problems Down Under

18   Any Old Iron

19   A Death in the Family

20   The Final Act

21   ‘They Hated Each Other, Right?’

22   The Curse of Drama Documentaries

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

The assistance and willingness of almost everybody I approached to be in this book to share their memories of Wilfrid Brambell made this one of the most enjoyable biographies I have ever written. It could easily read like the end credits to the movie Star Wars, and I have a terrible fear that I will forget one or two people – and if I do, I promise to correct my oversight in any future editions.

I will begin with Mark Beynon at The History Press, first and foremost, for agreeing that Wilfrid Brambell would make a fascinating biography subject. I’ve worked with Mark on The Richard Beckinsale Story and Basil Rathbone: The Curse of Sherlock Holmes and hope to work on many more with him.

I began this journey in 2011 and was privileged to meet and interview Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in a large, rambling mansion in London. I was also fortunate to interview Wilfrid’s agent of many years, Joan Reddin, but as the project gathered pace, so the accusation surfaced regarding Wilfrid and an alleged incident in Jersey back in the early 1970s. I’ll return to that towards the end of this book, but at the time, it meant my publisher indefinitely shelved the life story of Wilfrid Brambell.

In the years between then and now, my recordings of both Ray and Alan, plus the two-hour chat with Joan, were lost on a corrupted voice recorder. Lost forever, I thought. Somehow, a data retrieval specialist – Dr John C. Reid of Bramhall, Cheshire – recovered the Galton and Simpson interview for me, but Joan’s was one of the ones he couldn’t save. Every interview I do now is transcribed immediately and copies are created and sent for safety.

I couldn’t have interviewed Ray and Alan without the help and organisation of their long-time agent, Tessa Le Bars. Tessa made it all happen and I couldn’t have seriously contemplated this book without the men who helped make Wilfrid a household name. Sadly, we have lost both Ray and Alan since that interview – I’m just privileged I had the chance to meet them both and have their own words and thoughts throughout the pages that follow.

Meeting Joan was also a pleasure, so to lose the two-hour chat with her at her delightful cottage over tea and biscuits was a huge blow. Joan has also passed away since, and the loss of her thoughts, memories and observations is my one major regret in this biography. That corrupted dictaphone has much to answer for …

Dublin-based Malcolm Brambell was Wilfrid’s nephew and, along with his wife, Mariette, shared their memories and gave me permission to proceed under the description ‘authorised’ biography. They have been supportive and their insights invaluable, and I am only sad Malcolm’s passing in 2020 means I won’t be able to present him with a copy of the book, though I shall ensure Mariette gets a copy.

While attempting to trace the surviving Brambells, I wrote to the Irish Times, who kindly published my letter enquiring if anybody knew or were aware of any of Wilfrid’s relatives in the Dublin area. As a result, a lady called Noreen O’Leary made contact and then supplied me with a number of documents and articles that were above and beyond anything I could have expected. Noreen is yet another valued contributor who we have since lost, passing away peacefully in 2019.

Gerry Cummins also took the time to respond to my letter and provided useful information on the Brambell family and some very handy links and tips.

Earlier, I mentioned that I had lost an interview with Joan Reddin – also lost on the same device were chats with Anna Karen, Phil Davis, Eric Chappell and Nicky Henson. Nicky was a lovely guy and famously played undercover policeman ‘Mr Johnson’ in the classic ‘The Psychiatrist’ episode of Fawlty Towers – a role he claimed he would be most remembered for, despite an impressive body of work on TV and stage. Nicky sent me a recording of Wilfrid singing on stage in Canterbury Tales and several theatre programmes, and was a genuinely lovely man who lost his long battle with cancer in 2019.

I had initially wanted to write Harry H. Corbett’s biography as well, and I would like to think my attempts to convince his daughter Susannah to allow me to do so resulted in her finally writing her own biography on her father – which is, of course, hard to top.

My enquiries led me to meet Simon and Malcolm Blott. Malcolm is the brother of Maureen Corbett, who was married to Harry. Simon is Malcolm’s son. It was Simon who helped me contact Susannah and then Malcolm, the latter recounting an invaluable view from the Corbett family, particularly Harry’s thoughts on his on-screen father and Malcolm’s own observations and occasional first-hand experience of meeting with Wilfrid at events or after filming episodes of Steptoe & Son.

Many thanks to both Simon and Malcolm who didn’t have to help me but were only too happy to.

One thing that has astounded me during the writing of this book is the number of people who didn’t just give their time but went out of their way to help me find other people associated with Wilfrid. I’ll begin with director Tony Palmer, who worked with Wilfrid on the BBC production of Alice in Wonderland, A Hard Day’s Night and 200 Motels – Tony’s recollections were priceless, but the fact he also introduced (and arranged an interview with) legendary movie director Richard Lester really is more than I could have hoped for. Richard’s memory of A Hard Day’s Night is lucid and fascinating, and it was a pleasure to speak to him.

Graham McCann is a brilliant author and documenter of British comedy and his meticulously researched article on Wilfrid’s 1961 courtroom appearance and the difficulties he faced at that time is quite superb. Generously, Graham was happy for me to use quotes from the original feature he wrote on comedy.co.uk. Many thanks, Graham.

Then, there is the quite brilliant John Lloyd, producer and creator of some of Britain’s best comedy shows, including the legendary Not the Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder, QI and a long list of many other fantastic programmes. John worked briefly with Wilfrid, but his memory of that short time is fantastic, and he helped me acquire quotes from Richard Curtis and Vernon Lawrence as well. John is a very busy man and didn’t have to help but was only too happy to.

When I was restarting this biography after a nine-year hiatus, the first response to an interview request I had was from Joanna Lumley, whose memory of appearing on Steptoe & Son was delightful. It put the wind in my sails at exactly the right moment.

Another beautiful actress proved difficult to track down, but eventually I managed to get hold of Carolyn Seymour, who played Zita, Harry’s stripper wife in the first Steptoe & Son movie. Carolyn’s recollections of filming are quite harrowing, and she reveals her thoughts on what she describes as an ‘awful’ experience. Find out why later in this book.

Continuing the theme, Anita Gillette is a Hollywood movie star who has appeared with anyone who is anyone. She sang with Barbra Streisand, made pictures with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez (among many, many others) and appeared in the ill-fated Broadway musical Kelly. Anita gives a Stateside perspective of Wilfrid’s time in America, as well as the reasons Kelly flopped in such grand style.

The list goes on.

John Lydon – if I could have had an icon of punk and British music for so long introduce this book, it would have been a genuine thrill for me – and the fact that he would perhaps have been the unlikeliest writer of a foreword imaginable would have made it all the more satisfying. For several weeks, it looked likely to happen, but an exhausting UK tour and his wife’s ill-health meant that the timings just weren’t right.

Anne-Marie Mallik (now Anne-Marie Huxstep) was cast alongside Wilfrid in the BBC Christmas interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. I have Tony Palmer (again) and LinkedIn to thank for tracing an actress who appeared just the once on screen, more than fifty years ago.

Popular character actor Perry Benson has been in a load of great movies and TV shows. He remembered the filming of Adventure Island in great detail, as well as a few hilarious lines uttered by a particularly mischievous Mr Brambell during filming!

Karen Dotrice, Keith Drinkel, Ian Ogilvy and the wonderful Sydonie Platt also offered snapshots of their experiences with Wilfrid on stage and TV. Former Bond Girl (x2) Valerie Leon was in the same movie as Wilfrid – Carry On Again Doctor – but their paths never crossed and there went my opportunity to speak with the woman from the famous Hai Karate aftershave ads of my childhood.

Sixties icon Jess Conrad was only too happy to share his recollections of the time he spent with Wilfrid on the 1962 movie The Boys, not to mention a hilarious account of the first time he met Matt Monro, but that, hopefully, I will save for another book.

Tony Robinson allowed me to use a quote from his autobiography too, so thank you, Baldrick!

And Melvyn Hayes was yet another actor from my childhood years who was a delight to speak with. One of the stars of the long-running sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, his recollections of working with Wilfrid were both hilarious and vivid. And at 86, he sounds younger and fitter than I am! What a lovely, generous man and I hope his own autobiography, which he says he will call It Ain’t Half Taken me a Long Time to Write this Book Mum, appears on bookshelves in the near future.

David Barrie directed the somewhat controversial When Steptoe Met Son for Channel 4 in 2002. The programme has largely been pilloried by Steptoe fans and David could quite easily have batted me off. However he was kind enough to not only respond to my approach, but also give me time to reveal some of the research and thinking behind a documentary that divided opinion, to say the least.

The director of the 2008 drama The Curse of Steptoe did not respond, and considering the outcry caused by the production and the knock-on effects for many involved, it is no real surprise and better forgotten, though we will examine the largely fictional programme in some depth later in this book.

Finally, highly acclaimed film director Terence Davies shared his memories of Wilfrid’s powerful performance as Robert Tucker in the 1983 short Death and Transfiguration, which was also one of his last roles. A haunting film about a dying man coming to terms with his homosexuality, it is bleak and unforgettable, particularly as Wilfrid’s death not too long after was unerringly similar to Tucker’s. Thank you, Terence – your recollections of one of Wilfrid’s legendary limericks had me in stitches.

There are many more people – agents, assistants and other folk not mentioned above and enough to fill a chapter on their own. I am well aware of the parts they played in helping me get the star names – I’d like to thank each and every one of you for the help you’ve given me, even if I’ve not name-checked you personally.

Being Wilfrid

If you were asked what the link is between the following four iconic musicians/artists – namely the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, Rag ’N’ Bone Man and the Mothers of Invention – the chances are, you wouldn’t think the answer was Wilfrid Brambell.

Not in a million years, in fact.

And if the same question was asked, but this time about what the link between Rising Damp, Only Fools and Horses and Blackadder was, again, Wilfrid Brambell almost certainly wouldn’t spring to mind. Why would it, as he never appeared in any of them.

The reason there is no obvious association between Wilfrid Brambell, the above musicians and a trio of hugely successful sitcoms is because he played Albert Ladysmith Steptoe, on and off, for the best part of two decades. To many people, that’s where his career began and ended. Yet he was very much connected to everything mentioned previously – some tenuously – but the connections are real, and you will read about them, and many more, in the pages that follow.

Wilfrid Brambell was so much more than the manipulating, conniving and miserly old man he played in Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s long-running Steptoe & Son, and his life story will reveal just how versatile an actor he actually was.

It was a life full of heartache, embarrassment and controversy, with an almost microscopic emphasis on his personal life and activities away from his acting career by the media, particularly those with an agenda. On screen, he was instantly recognisable as the feuding, suffocating but ultimately incredibly proud father in Steptoe; away from it, he was a dapper and fashionable, well-educated and extremely well-spoken man.

It was a life of contrasts, achievements and, at times, scurrilous accusations that still dog him and sully his name long after his death. So much so that I had to think long and hard about the title of this book for fear it could be twisted to suit certain narratives.

When Harry H. Corbett, playing Harold Steptoe, uttered the unforgettable line, ‘You dirty old man!’ in one of many classic episodes of Steptoe & Son, the phrase became synonymous with Wilfrid Brambell’s character. At that moment, as the miserly old father fished pickled onions out of the tin bath he was sitting in and placed them back in the jar for future consumption, Harold’s astute observation of his dad’s disgusting habits would remain a recurring line in the show for many years, while becoming the one Wilfrid carried around in his personal life like an albatross.

I’ve called his biography You Dirty Old Man! not for some cheap double-meaning jibe at Wilfrid and his life away from the camera, but because that is the only title I could ever have used. Why? Well, after a lot of hard thinking, I believe his portrayal of Albert Steptoe remains one of the finest and funniest sitcom characters of all time and the catchphrase is too obvious to ignore.

Of course, it has to be said in the voice of Harry H. Corbett …

And therein lies another thread and one that has been discussed in great depth over the years – that Wilfrid and Harry hated the sight of each other. It was fascinating to discover what their true feelings about one another actually were, told by those who were closest to both men. By the end of this book, you will have made your own judgement about whether the rumours were accurate or something of a myth, popularised to fit those aforementioned narratives.

And if you enjoy reading the thoughts of the great and good associated with Wilfrid’s career – and they are legion – have a look at the acknowledgements page that precedes this introduction. It’s easy to skip past that section and get to the start of the story, but please have a look, if you haven’t already. I repeat, as a biographer, and as I say there, I genuinely couldn’t have asked for better help from friends, family, actors, writers and directors.

Finally, before the story begins, I’d like to add that the chapter lengths will vary wildly depending on the information and research I have to hand. Wilfrid died in 1985, and though his surviving relatives gave their blessing for this biography, there are gaps in the timeline that sadly could not be filled with the kind of detail I wanted. I won’t be padding those occasional voids with what might have happened during these periods or try to reason why an event occurred without solid research and evidence to back claims up.

With that in mind, the chapter on Wilfrid’s early life is fairly brief and I have sparingly recounted his own thoughts and memories from his 1976 autobiography, All Above Board, which is surprisingly entertaining, despite the general consensus that ‘it didn’t reveal much about anything’.

You Dirty Old Man! does reveal a lot about many things throughout Wilfrid’s seventy-two years on this planet, and plenty about what happened in the years after his passing – but not least what a versatile, durable and talented actor we are dealing with here.

David Clayton,

Cheshire,

May 2022

1

A Happy but TurbulentChildhood

Henry Brambell, known by one and all as Harry, met Edith Marks in Cork around the turn of the century and, four years later, they were married at Cork Cathedral. They had two sons: Frederick, born in 1905, and James, born in 1907, and they moved north to Dublin to initially stay with relatives and find work to support the additional mouths they now had to feed.

Harry’s father-in-law, Francis Rogers, helped him find work alongside him at the Guinness brewery located at St James’s Gate, and there Harry would progress to become a first-class clerk accountant, and his improved salary enabled him to buy his family their first home – a small, terraced house at 6 Edenvale Road in Rathgar, in the south of the Irish capital.

It was there, on 22 March 1912, that Henry Wilfrid Brambell first entered the world.

Harry was 42 at the time his third son was born, while Edith, a doctor’s daughter, was a decade younger than her husband and also a highly accomplished pianist and a talented amateur opera singer. They led a relatively comfortable existence, with the family even able to afford a servant who lived with them – 26-year-old Elizabeth Brady – and though Wilfrid was the youngest sibling, he would soon be causing mischief and mayhem for his older brothers.

The Brambells soon moved a short distance across Dublin to 10 Kenilworth Square and a slightly bigger home with more space inside and out. Wilfrid would later recall his childhood memory of the respectable semi-detached Victorian as being ‘an enormous domain’, only to return in the 1930s out of idle curiosity and discover the once seemingly cavernous dwelling he’d stored in his imagination was a little more modest than he recalled.

A waif-like, wiry child, his naturally mischievous nature would soon bubble to the surface during regular squabbles with his older brothers and he would often side with the younger James against the elder Frederick, taunting and winding him up whenever the opportunity arose. That is, until one particular occasion, when Wilfrid overstepped the mark and intervened in a spat between Frederick and James, who instead joined forces and literally threw him out of the bedroom, where he promptly banged his eye as he stumbled into a wall. He was quick to cut a deal with his brothers, which spared them their mother’s wrath when she saw the darkening swelling around his left cheekbone.

Wilfrid was undoubtedly the apple of his mother’s eye, and Edith particularly focused on her youngest son when imparting her artistic knowledge. As a result, Wilfrid’s path to the theatre began when he was just 2½ years old and his mother took him to entertain wounded First World War soldiers in various hospitals around Dublin.

Dressed in a sailor’s blouse, blue serge pleated skirt, white socks and button-sided boots, he sang and danced without a shred of stage fright, singing a number of songs that included ‘Mister Bear’ and ‘Three Mice Went into a Hole to Spin’. It was undoubtedly here that his love of performing started in earnest, and a seed was firmly planted in his mind as to where his true vocation was – even if it wouldn’t come to full fruition for many years.

In 2011, Wilfrid’s nephew Malcolm Brambell – son of his brother Frederick – recalled that it was little wonder his uncle loved to entertain whenever he got the opportunity, coming from a colourful family where life was rarely dull. Malcolm said:

My grandfather Harry worked at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. I believe he was a wonderful character and a member of Grange Golf Club. The story goes that with sheep on the course and no mowers in those days, to counteract the flies he put a fly paper round his hat. In autumn you could smell him on the course before you could see him!

Wilfrid lived with his mother, Edith [née Marks] in Dún Laoghaire [then Kingstown]. Edith came from Cork where her father was the organist at St Finbarre’s Cathedral. Wilfrid was the youngest of three boys – my father, Fred and uncle, Dr James Brambell of Lydney, Gloucester. All the family have been very musical – except me!

By then, the Guinness Brewery was the largest in the world and there were few families in Dublin that didn’t have somebody working there, or at least knew people who did. The pay was comparatively generous and the ever-expanding company ensured employees had attractive recompense and a career path if they wanted it. They were well looked after.

With a well-respected father, who was regarded as a popular local character, and his mother’s operatic background, Wilfrid’s DNA demanded he follow the arts. Together with his mother, who played keyboard whenever he performed, the youngster grabbed his opportunity to be the centre of attention with both hands.

Edith, however, could also be his biggest critic, particularly if she felt any praise he received was going to his head. She made it her business to ensure his feet were firmly on the ground, with constructive criticism and advice learned from her own experiences. On certain occasions, when she felt he was fishing for a compliment after a show, her response to the audience’s reaction would be along the lines of, ‘They were being kind’ or, ‘You weren’t that good’. Ironically, Wilfrid would, in later years, admit to having a profound dislike of precocious children in the entertainment industry, while conceding that he could easily have become one, but for his mother’s measured responses.

However, that maternal guidance would soon be over as his parents decided to separate in 1919, with Harry taking custody of his three boys – an amicable agreement by all accounts. The Brambells, minus Edith, moved 12 miles away to the coastal town of Dún Laoghaire, in the south of Dublin.

Wilfrid, in his autobiography All Above Board, wrote:

St Patrick’s Day on 17th March is Ireland’s National Holiday, celebrated in honour of her patron saint. Upon that day in 1919, my parents decided to end their 16 years of incompatibility. It was a somewhat traumatic experience and the re-adjustment took me several years to absorb.

Just 7 years old, Wilfrid’s main influence, supporter and nurturer effectively became a peripheral figure in his life, with another female relative willingly stepping in to help raise the three boys. Harry’s sister Louisa allowed them to move into her home at 3 Mulgrave Terrace in the coastal town of Dún Laoghaire and she effectively changed her role from aunt to stepmother to support her brother and his sons.

Dún Laoghaire was known as Kingstown when the Brambells moved there, before being renamed with the more traditional Irish Dún Laoghaire, which means ‘fort of Laoghaire’. It boasts a huge harbour with two long, granite piers and while the boys adjusted to the break-up of their family unit, there was also a new school to take on board.

Understandably, Wilfrid, in particular, rebelled for a time and made life difficult for Louisa. Though he had no personal animosity towards his aunt, he wanted his mother, and she had filled her void only too willingly in his eyes. He adored his mother, and it was she who understood his artistic leanings more than his father. In later years, he would apologise for the ‘ghastly life’ he would give his Aunt Louisa, saying as much on her deathbed, to which she denied that ever being the case. Wilfrid believed it to be the only lie he ever knew her to tell.

With no other option, he began life at Kingstown Grammar School, joined the choir, and continued to take the opportunity to sing or perform whenever the opportunity arose. Academically, he was very bright, but not particularly interested in learning or being a star pupil.

He was a firebrand who was not adverse to speaking his mind and would be confrontational when he felt it necessary. Case in point: at the age of 10 he was demoted from the Wolf Cubs (similar to Scouts) for ‘impertinent insubordination’ after his attempt to earn his badge for housemanship resulted in a request from the Cub mistress, the fantastically named Miss Olive Goodbody, to clean all the windows in her large house.

When he’d finished the task, pleased as punch with his efforts, he proudly showed Miss Goodbody his work and expected not only his housemanship badge confirmation, but a reward of some kind as a bonus. Instead, he was given not so much as a pat on the back and ushered out of her house so, festering with injustice and resentment, he turned around to Miss Goodbody and said, ‘Akela, you’re a shit!’

It was not an isolated incident, either, as Wilfrid winged his way through his school years rather than use his high IQ to better use. His talent for poetry – and particularly risqué limericks – was the stuff of legend at Kingstown Grammar School and the peak of his notoriety came when he was a 15-year-old. With the help of an accomplice, who produced the school magazine, one of his masterpieces was printed out and shared around the school. It went:

Oh, I recall my youth’s first splendour,

With joyous life just begun,

When all my limbs were soft and tender,

Did I say all? … Well, all but one.

But now the winds of age blow frigid,

The halcyon days of youth are done,

All my limbs grow stiff and rigid –

Did I say all? … Well, all but one.

Wilfrid completed his time at Kingstown and pondered a stark reality. He had no idea what he wanted to do next and was faced with the possibility of working behind a desk or perhaps following in his father’s footsteps at Guinness.

If he was to follow his dreams of performing, he’d almost certainly need to do so while earning a living from a steady job. He was also smart enough to understand that, at some point, he’d need a major break somewhere along the line if he was going to really make it in show business.

2

A Wound thatWould Never Heal

Wilfrid left Kingstown Grammar School for good and began a period of his life that would allow him to combine work with what by now was his passion: acting. He joined the commercial staff of the Irish Field, a smaller newspaper that was published by the Irish Times, while performing on stage in a semi-professional capacity. He worked there for more than a decade.

On leaving school, he had enrolled at the prestigious Abbey School of Acting in Dublin and would go on to become a professional actor at the equally prestigious Gate Theatre, also in his home city. It was while serving this lengthy apprenticeship that he began to hone his craft among a host of supremely talented actors.

He would cycle to work at the Irish Field, where he considered himself to be little more than a dogsbody, before attending the Abbey in the early evening. Many years later, the Irish Times wrote that Wilfrid’s colleagues at the Irish Field remembered him as a quiet man, with a dry sense of humour, who was ‘always slipping out to do a bit of acting’. Of course, it was far more than that, and at the Abbey he would learn from the very best in what was a halcyon period for Irish theatre, regarded as one of the finest in the world at the time.

He was rumoured by some sources to have had an uncredited minor role in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 classic The 39 Steps, but there is no concrete evidence this is true and, moreover, this seems incredibly unlikely. It would also have meant he would have had to be in London, and there is no indication that he’d ever left Ireland by that point.

His first lead came during an Abbey production of George Bernard Shaw’s Fanny’s First Play in 1938 – a compromise on the original play that had been scheduled to end the season, but ultimately, couldn’t be performed due to an incomplete script. It was decided that the only course of action was to repeat a previous production that had been well received and required little rehearsal.

Dennis Johnstone, a successful writer as well as an actor, was, however, unable to reprise his role as he was working in America at the time. As it became known that Wilfrid had played the same part previously in an amateur production, this earned him his first leading part on stage. It was to be the first of many at the Abbey Theatre. He grasped the opportunity and impressed, just as he’d known he had needed to, with his passion for Shaw’s work shining throughout.

But the start of the Second World War would also be the beginning of a new path for Wilfrid, one that would eventually lead him to England and boundless possibilities. Rather than fight behind enemy lines, he felt his talents as a performer could be better utilised during wartime and he instead enlisted with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) to entertain troops during the conflict while continuing to practise his art.

It was a wise career move. ENSA had been established in 1939 and was a wing of the British Armed Forces. He was doing what he loved best and was part of a unit that would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles until 1944 when he finally got the major break he’d been waiting for.

When top Irish comedy actor Jimmy O’Dea fell ill while performing as Buttons in Cinderella