Sir Norman Wisdom - Telegraph When the two men met briefly in 1. Chaplin told Wisdom: “You will follow in my footsteps,” and three years later Wisdom made his first major film, Trouble in Store. Although he was already established on stage and on television, reviews of the film were moderate, and Rank executives held out no great hopes for it. In the event, the film set records in 5. London cinemas, and Wisdom’s plaintive theme song, Don’t Laugh at Me, spent months in the Top 1. An unbroken run of 1. Wisdom holding off even the challenge of James Bond to be Britain’s favourite box- office draw. In 1. 96. 4 a record 1. BBC pantomime Robinson Crusoe. The plots of films such as The Square Peg, On the Beat and A Stitch in Time varied little. Wisdom — as the character Norman Pitkin — was the willing dolt who meant well but could do no right, forever tumbling through a slapstick universe filled with milk churns, tea- trolleys, laundry chutes and revolving doors. Yet ultimately his simplicity defeated his social betters (often played by his stooge Jerry Desmonde), and he claimed the girl. The humour was obvious, and even the best — Trouble in Store and the Foreign Office satire Man of the Moment — now seem very dated. Wisdom’s screen success declined along with the British film industry. His last outing was an ill- advised sex comedy in 1. What’s Good for the Goose. Sex, like colour film, seemed to jar. He did not translate well in America, which already had a similar star in Jerry Lewis. A later role, however, in a Broadway musical, Walking Happy, earned him a critics’ award in 1. Yet everywhere else Wisdom’s pathetic charm cast a binding spell. He was as popular in South America as he was in Iran, where he met boys whose only English was his catchphrase “Mr Grimsdale!” His films were often shown in eastern bloc countries, where he achieved celebrity status. In Britain his cocking a snook at the Establishment prefigured the Sixties; in the eastern bloc Marxist censors approved his proletarian if hapless subversion of the elite. A hospice established for those affected by the Chernobyl disaster was named after him; and in 1. Freedom of both the City of London and of the Albanian capital, Tirana. Wisdom was the only Western actor whose films were allowed to be shown in Albania under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. Norman Wisdom was born at Marylebone, London, on February 4 1. He was not candid, nor perhaps sure, about his date of birth and regularly knocked up to 1. He grew up in poverty in Paddington (where his first memory was of a Zeppelin passing overhead during the First World War), the son of a chauffeur and a seamstress. Praise a person as much as you like. But limit your words while criticizing because criticism is one loan that everyone is dying to return with huge interest. Wisdom Quotes – Inspirational Quotes, Pictures and Motivational. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. On the Beat is a 1962 British comedy film starring Norman Wisdom, and directed by Robert Asher. List of the best Norman Wisdom movies, ranked best to worst with movie trailers when available. Norman Wisdom's highest grossing movies have received a lot of accolades over the ye. This is one of the Funniest films ever made. Thank god for the healing gift of laughter. Enjoy. Sir Norman Wisdom, who died on Monday aged 95, ranked second only to Charlie Chaplin as the 20th century’s most consistently successful British screen comic; he shared with Chaplin a talent for visual and. Sir Norman Wisdom OBE (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English comedian, singer, songwriter, actor and musician. Filmography. A Date with a Dream (1948) Wit and Wisdom (1948–1950, TV) Trouble in Store (1953) One. Early life. Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London. 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. His father was a violent drunk who often hit Norman, once throwing him against the ceiling. When his parents separated Norman and his brother were farmed out to paid guardians. They eventually grew up at Deal, in Kent. Norman left school at 1. Lipton’s and then a commis- waiter at a London hotel, from where he was sacked for dropping a loaded breakfast- tray down a lift shaft. He walked to Cardiff with the aim of becoming a miner, but was deserted by the friend who had promised him work, and instead embarked in a steamer bound for Argentina as a cabin boy. The crew taught him to box, and in Buenos Aires Norman (who weighed only five stone) found himself matched (for money) against an opponent twice his size and age. He won the fight, but the crew spent his prize- money. Back in London, and still only 1. Norman Wisdom has become the great British clown very much in the mould of Charles Chaplin with his 'little man' in the ill fitting suit and cloth cap. His character is 'everyman', much put upon but struggling through to a. Marshal Foch’s statue in Victoria. He would sneak into cinemas to keep warm. He lasted two hours as a trainee draughtsman before finding his first métier as an Army bandsman. In 1. 93. 0 he was sent to Lucknow, India, with the 1. Hussars. As well as learning to play 1. It was his first solo performance. A fanatical gymnast who later performed all his own stunts, he was also for three years the Raj’s flyweight boxing champion. Wisdom returned to England a civilian in 1. Churchill’s own switchboard. He then joined the Royal Corps of Signals. His concert party work was spotted by Rex Harrison, who encouraged him to become a professional. His break came in December 1. Collins Hall, Islington, a venue for new variety turns. He had followed the manager everywhere for three weeks asking for a chance. Billed as “The Successful Failure”, he produced an act that was a synthesis of his experiences and would never change. Wisdom was life’s victim, a gormless, game village idiot. Mime and pratfalls were his stock- in- trade, dance and song mere distractions, as he clowned with musical instruments that shut on his fingers or was knocked out by his boxing shadow. It was silly, unsophisticated fun larded with pathos — and austerity audiences lapped it up. In Skegness one teenage schoolgirl laughed so hard that she dislocated her jaw. Within two years Wisdom was a West End star. Not everyone appreciated his rise to top billing. An upstaged Canadian act took to coming on to interpret Wisdom’s routine until laid out by an uppercut. By 1. 95. 0 he was appearing regularly on the new medium of television, as well as in pantomime and ice spectaculars. He was also a favourite with the Royal Family and performed at Windsor Castle. Yet he still wanted to create a character unique to him, and in a Scarborough charity shop he found a uniform. The Gump”, in a jacket three sizes too small with tie awry and cap askew, became his trademark role, the eternal schoolboy with the looks of a beaten puppy. Wisdom became addicted to hard work, following 1. He was also a perfectionist, rehearsing a new sketch for up to a week. The punishing regime cost him his second marriage while bringing him the trappings of wealth. He collected cars, kept a 9. Sussex house once inhabited by Anne of Cleves. In 1. 96. 8 an appeal he lost against paying tax on £2. America set a legal precedent. In 1. 98. 0 he moved to the Isle of Man. He appeared in no more films after 1. A Little Bit of Wisdom, up to 1. Thereafter he was seen sporadically, most notably in a straight role as a dying cancer patient in a 1. BBC play, Going Gently. He then had a screen part in a dire British thriller, Double X, in 1. Wisdom kept himself formidably fit through golf, jogging and even football. He was still performing a relentlessly physical stage act in his eighties. There was a ghostwritten autobiography published in 1. Don’t Laugh At Me. He was appointed OBE in 1. From 1. 99. 5 until 2. Billy Ingleton in the BBC’s television comedy Last of the Summer Wine. In 2. 00. 4 he had a cameo role in Coronation Street, and in 2. Kevin Powis’s film Expresso. Winston the butler in the film Evil Calls: The Raven (2. Norman Wisdom’s first marriage, to Doreen, was a wartime romance, and was quickly dissolved. In 1. 94. 7 he married Freda Simpson, with whom he had a son and a daughter. That marriage was dissolved in 1.
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