2010年10月4日星期一

[G4G] Re: Norman Wisdom dies aged 95

简讯:英国喜剧演员温斯顿逝世: 英国著名的老牌喜剧演员诺曼・温斯顿去世,享年95岁。http://bbc.in/bLzVuO

2010/10/5 参考消息 <>
His official website crashed last night under the volume of traffic, as word spread of his death.

 
 

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via The Guardian World News by Maev Kennedy on 10/4/10

Comedian Norman Wisdom, a rival to Charlie Chaplin, dies peacefully in an Isle of Man nursing home
Norman Wisdom: A life in clips

Big in Albania, and huge in the affection of generations of his fans, comedian Sir Norman Wisdom, one of the last great survivors of the music halls, has died aged 95.

His official website crashed last night under the volume of traffic, as word spread of his death.

His deceptively artless comedy, usually based on his role as "The Gump", a downtrodden, sad faced little man in a battered cap and a deplorably ill-fitting suit, concealed immense technical skill, superb comic timing, and a sharp business mind.

Although best known as a performer, he was also a talented song writer, including providing the lyrics for Dame Vera Lynn's greatest hit, There'll Be Blue Birds Over The White Cliffs of Dover.

His family announced that he died peacefully in a nursing home on the Isle of Man, where he had lived for the last 30 years in an antiques filled house he designed himself.

"Over the last six months Norman has sustained a series of strokes causing a general decline in both his physical and mental health. He had maintained a degree of independence until a few days ago.

"However, over the last few days his condition rapidly declined. He was in no pain or distress and peacefully passed over at 18.46 on October 4."

Wisdom's admirers included Charlie Chaplin – who called him his favourite clown, and said he was the only serious rival to his own genius – Prince Charles, and the entire population of Albania, where for years under the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha his were the only western films approved.

His films, usually dialogue-light and slapstick-heavy, were popular all over the world, but he had a cult following in Albania. It was said that on any day of the year one of his 32 films was showing there in some cinema or television station, and he was greeted as a national hero – under the name of his film character, Norman Pitkin – when the iron curtain fell and he could finally visit.

He knew exactly how much he would be missed: two years ago he had the satisfaction of clarifying a few points when Sky News ran an affectionate obituary online in error. "Sir Norman is alive and well and wondering what all the fuss is about", his statement read.

His own theme song was Don't Laugh at Me Cause I'm a Fool, but he was anything but. He was famous in a spendthrift industry for how careful he was with money, saving as soon as he began to earn, and making stock market investments. Undoubtedly this was rooted in his earlier life, when he knew hunger and neglect.

He was born in London in 1915, one of two sons of a dressmaker and a chauffeur. His parents divorced, unusually for the time, and he was nominally brought up by his father, although he learned young to look after himself and spent time in a children's home.

He recalled in an interview that often the two boys survived by stealing food from shops and stalls, but were sometimes at a loss to know how to prepare it: their attempt to fry eggs in the shells was a failure.

He left school at 13 for a 10 shilling job as a Liptons Teas delivery boy, and went on to work as a pageboy in a ladies' club, a cabin boy – after, he insisted, walking from London to Cardiff to join the merchant navy – and having learned in his days as a bandsman in the army, a useful boxer despite his slight frame.

His showbusiness break came unusually late in 1946, in the last days of the music halls circuit, when he began as the straight man to magician David Nixon, and then got his own slots as a comedian, singer and dancer. Within six years he was a film star, and appearing in the Royal Variety Show.

As his early film career waned in the 1960s, he reinvented himself several times, as a straight actor – winning rave reviews for his role as a dying cancer victim in a 1981 television play, Going Gently – and as a stage and television cabaret star. He was knighted in 2000.

He formally retired at the age of 90, by then almost completely deaf, but continued to make occasional television appearances. He lived alone in the house he designed and built on the Isle of Man until three years ago, when he moved into a nearby nursing home.

Phil Day, who had been Sir Norman's publicist since 1969, paid tribute to him tonight as a "lovely man" who was "100% professional". Day, who chose Wisdom to be his daughter's godfather, said: "He never turned down any request. He never threw a tantrum. He was 100% professional all of the time.

"Of all the artists I've ever worked with, he's been the closest. It's a sad day."

He admitted the star could be "unpredictable", adding: "Whatever he said, you had to look for the tongue in the cheek to see if he was serious."

Day said: "I have never met anyone in the profession who didn't like him, right up to royalty.

"I've been with him with members of the royal family and the hairs on the back of my neck have stood up at things he's said. I can't think of anyone else who could get away with it."

Day visited Sir Norman at his nursing home last year and said that despite his failing health, he remembered pretending to stumble after receiving his knighthood from the Queen in 2000, asking: "Do you remember when I tripped?"


guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


 
 

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