Norman Wisdom
Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom,[1] OBE[2] (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English actor, comedian, musician and singer best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring a hapless character called Norman Pitkin.[3] He was awarded the 1953 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles following the release of Trouble in Store, his first film in a lead role.
Sir
Norman Wisdom
OBE
Norman Joseph Wisdom[1]
4 February 1915
Marylebone, London, England
4 October 2010 (aged 95)
Ballasalla, Isle of Man
Kirk Bride Churchyard, Bride, Isle of Man
- Comedian
- actor
- singer
1946–2008
3, including Nicholas Wisdom
United Kingdom
1930–1946
Wisdom gained celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania where his films were the only ones with Western actors permitted to be shown by dictator Enver Hoxha.[4] Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown".[5]
Wisdom later forged a career on Broadway in New York City, alongside stars such as Mandy Patinkin and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently in 1981. He toured Australia and South Africa.[3] After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a hospice was named in his honour.[4] In 1995, he was given the Freedom of the City of London and of Tirana.[4] The same year, he was appointed OBE and was knighted five years later.[4]
Early life[edit]
Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London.[6] His parents were Frederick, a chauffeur, and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres, and had made a dress for Queen Mary.[7] The couple married in Marylebone on 15 July 1912. Wisdom had an elder brother, Frederick Thomas "Fred" Wisdom (13 December 1912 – 1 July 1971).
The family lived at 91 Fernhead Road, Maida Vale, London W9, where they slept in one room.[8] He and his brother were brought up in extreme poverty and were frequently hit by their alcoholic father, who would pick them up and throw them across the room.[9][4]
After his parents' separation, Wisdom and his brother were "farmed out to paid guardians",[4] but his father didn’t pay and he was turned out. After unsuccessful fostering elsewhere he was generously taken in by a couple. Wisdom got work as an errand boy in a grocer's shop despite not knowing how to ride a bicycle. Having been kicked out of his home by his father he became homeless and slept rough in London,.[9] At 13 he worked long shifts in a hotel. A fellow boy worker convinced him to walk to Cardiff and become a miner, however the boy’s family wouldn’t house him. So he became a cabin boy in the Merchant Navy. He sailed to Argentina learning to box on board. In Argentina he survived 3 rounds of boxing for prize money but was badly beaten and had to fight off some sexual advances by a fellow sailor. On return to Cardiff he had no job and returned to London, where he was advised to join the army which took band recruits from age 14. Though knowing no music he turned on the tears to the recruiting officer and was successful.
Military service[edit]
In 1930, he was posted to Lucknow, in the United Provinces of British India,[4] as a band boy.[10]
He rode horses, became the flyweight boxing champion of the British Army in India[4] and taught himself to play the piano, trumpet, saxophone, flute, drums, bugle and clarinet.[8]
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wisdom was sent to work in a communications centre in a command bunker in London, where he connected telephone calls from war leaders to the prime minister. He met Winston Churchill on several occasions when asked for updates on incoming calls.[8] Wisdom then joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and performed a similar military function at the unit headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Whilst performing a shadow boxing routine in an army gym, Wisdom discovered he had a talent for entertainment,[11] and began to develop his skills as a musician and stage entertainer.[5] In 1940 aged 25, at a NAAFI entertainment night, during a dance routine, Wisdom stepped down from his position in the orchestra pit, and started shadow boxing. Hearing his colleagues and officers giggling, he broke into a duck waddle, followed by a series of facial expressions. He later described the reaction as: "They were in hysterics. All the officers were falling about laughing."[12]
Wisdom later said this was where he first patented his persona as "The Successful Failure".[12] Over the next few years, until he was demobilised in 1945, his routine included his characteristic singing and the trip-up-and-stumble. After Wisdom appeared at a charity concert at Cheltenham Town Hall on 31 August 1944,[13] actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to become a professional entertainer.[14]
Starring film roles for the Rank Organisation[edit]
Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with Trouble in Store (1953).[19] This film earned him a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film in 1954.[20] It was the second most popular film at the British box-office in 1954 and exhibitors voted him the tenth biggest star at the British box office the same year.[21]
His films' cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of those made a generation earlier by George Formby.[22] Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences and Wisdom's films were among Britain's biggest box-office successes of their day. They were also successful 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, usually called Norman, in a manual occupation in which he is barely competent and in a junior position to a straight man, often played by Edward Chapman (as Mr Grimsdale) or Jerry Desmonde. 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. His innocent incompetence still made him endearing to the heroine.
Wisdom's second film as star, One Good Turn (1955), was the seventh most popular movie of 1955 in Britain.[23] He made a cameo in As Long as They're Happy (1955), then returned in Man of the Moment (1955). He was the 6th most popular star of 1955.[24]
Wisdom was a window cleaner in Up in the World (1956) and worked in a jewellery store in Just My Luck (1957). The box office receipts of these last few films had declined from previous Wisdom films but The Square Peg (1959), an army comedy, reversed the trend and was one of the year's biggest hits. The film was the 7th most popular movie at the British box office in 1959.[25] Less successful was Follow a Star (1959). There Was a Crooked Man (1960) was an attempt to change Wisdom's image away from Rank Organisation. The Bulldog Breed (1960) was more conventional. The film also starred a young Michael Caine who later recalled he did not enjoy working with Wisdom because he "wasn't very nice to support-part actors".[26] Wisdom remained the 10th biggest star at the British box office.
Wisdom was in The Girl on the Boat (1961) from a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, a second film away from the Rank formula. On the Beat (1962) as a car cleaner and A Stitch in Time (1963), in which he was cast as an apprentice butcher, returned him to the regular format.
The Early Bird (1965), his first colour film, had Wisdom as a milkman. After a cameo in The Sandwich Man (1966), Wisdom starred in Press for Time (1966), the last film in this sequence of starring vehicles. Wisdom was still voted the 5th most popular star at the British box office.[27]
Whilst Wisdom's stage performances often involved musical numbers, he wrote only a few of them. He has seven songs attributed to him in the ASCAP database, which are: "Beware", "Don't Laugh at Me ('cause I'm a Fool)", "Falling in Love", "Follow a Star", "I Love You", "Please Opportunity", and "Up in the World".[28]
Health decline[edit]
In mid-2006, after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm, Wisdom was flown by helicopter to hospital in Liverpool and he was fitted with a heart pacemaker.[55]
Wisdom resided in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla, where he had been resident from 12 July 2007 to 4 October 2010.[56]
On the release of Expresso to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, because of his suffering from vascular dementia.[45] It was also reported that he had granted his children power of attorney over his affairs and, having sold off his flat in Epsom, Surrey, they were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise money to fund his longer-term care.[57]
On 16 January 2008,[58] BBC2 aired Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4.[59] The documentary highlighted the dilemma of coping with an aging parent. His family said that Wisdom's memory loss had become so severe that he no longer recognised himself in his films.
Death[edit]
In the six months prior to his death, Wisdom suffered a series of strokes, causing a decline in his physical and mental health. He died on 4 October 2010 at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man at the age of 95.[60]
His funeral took place on 22 October 2010 in Douglas, Isle of Man, and all of the island were invited.[61][62] His trademark cloth cap was placed on the coffin in the church.[62] The funeral was attended by a large number of showbusiness personalities and, at Wisdom's request, Moira Anderson sang "Who Can I Turn To",[62] which was specially arranged for the occasion by Gordon Cree.[63] Wisdom's body was buried at Kirk Bride Churchyard, Bride, Isle of Man.