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Meet Mr. Lucifer
''Meet Mr. Lucifer'' is a black-and-white British comedy satire film released in 1953 starring Stanley Holloway. It was filmed at Ealing Studios, London, and is one of the Ealing comedies. The film is based on the play ''Beggar My Neighbour'' by Arnold Ridley (who later played Private Godfrey in the BBC television comedy series ''Dad's Army''). The film opened on 26 November 1953 at the Haymarket Gaumont cinema in London. The overall scenario is that a television set makes people act out of character, with visible encouragement from the Devil in human form. Plot When Mr Pedelty leaves his firm, he is given a television set as a retirement present. At first, he enjoys all the attention from his neighbours, but soon the attraction wears off, and he sells it on to a young married couple the Nortons, living in the flat above him. They soon encounter the same problems, and again the set is passed on to several different characters all with the same results. The set passes to the che ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Pelissier
Harry Anthony Compton Pelissier (27 July 1912 – 2 April 1988) was an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director. Biography Pelissier was born in Barnet and came from a theatrical family. His parents were the theatre producer H. G. Pelissier (who presented ''Pelissier's Follies'') and the actress Fay Compton. His uncle was Compton MacKenzie, who wrote '' Whisky Galore''. Pelissier began acting in the 1930s. In 1935 and 1936, he was featured in Noël Coward's play cycle, '' Tonight at 8.30'', both in Britain and on Broadway. He also played in Coward's ''Set to Music'' (1939) He began writing in 1937 and directing in 1949. He was the screenwriter and director of four popular films: ''The History of Mr Polly'' (1949), ''The Rocking Horse Winner'' (1950), ''Night Without Stars'' (1951), and ''Personal Affair'' starring Gene Tierney written by Lesley Storm. He also directed ''Encore'' (1951). He also directed Ealing's satire on television '' Meet Mr Lucifer'' (1953). He lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Tomelty
Joseph Tomelty (5 March 1911 – 7 June 1995) was an Irish actor, playwright, novelist, short-story writer and theatre manager. He worked in film, television, radio and on the stage. starring in Sam Thompson's 1960 play ''Over the Bridge''. Life and career Born in Portaferry (Ireland at the time, now Northern Ireland) in 1911, he was the son of James Tomelty; a skilled fiddler who was nicknamed "Rollicking". Tomelty's exposure to music at a young age influenced his work as a playwright with several of his stage works were named after songs, including ''The Singing Bird'' (1948), ''Down the Heather Glen'' (1953) and ''The Drunken Sailor'' (1954). His brother, Peter Tomelty, was a tenor and recording artist. He married Lena Milligan in 1942.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaryjoseph-to melty-1586249.html They had two daughters together; Frances Tomelty is an actress and the first wife of singer and musician Sting, while Roma Tomelty was also an actress. Works Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Sims
Irene Joan Marion Sims (9 May 1930 – 27 June 2001) was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the ''Carry On'' franchise, appearing in 24 of the films (the most for any actress). On television, she is known for playing Gran in ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1967–1975), Madge Kettlewell in ''Sykes'' (1972–1978), Mrs Wembley, the cook with a liking for sherry, in '' On the Up'' (1990–1992), and Madge Hardcastle in '' As Time Goes By'' (1994–1998). Early life and education Sims was born on 9 May 1930, the only child of John Henry Sims (1888-1964), Station Master of Laindon railway station in Essex, and his wife Gladys Marie Sims, '' née'' Ladbrook (1896-1981). Sims's early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station. She would often put on performances for waiting passengers. She decided that she wanted to pursue show business during her teens, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions locally. One o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McDonald Hobley
Dennys Jack Valentine McDonald-Hobley (9 June 1917, Stanley, Falkland Islands – 30 July 1987) was one of the earliest BBC Television continuity announcers, appearing on screen from 1946 to 1956. Childhood and early career Hobley (pronounced to rhyme with 'nobly') was the son of Charles McDonald Hobley, the naval chaplain at the cathedral in Stanley, Falkland Islands, and his wife Gladys, née Blanchard. He was christened Dennys Jack Valentine McDonald-Hobley and attended Brighton College, England, a public school, from 1931–1936. He began his acting career in repertory theatre, under the stage names Val Blanchard and Robert Blanchard, using his mother's maiden name, and toured before the Second World War in J. B. Priestley's ''Time and the Conways''. War service During the Second World War, Hobley served with the Royal Artillery. He was involved in an ultimately abandoned plot to abduct Adolf Hitler and bring him to Britain. He also served in Ceylon with the British F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Harben
Philip Hubert Kendal Jerrold Harben (17 October 1906 – 27 April 1970) was an English cook, recognised as the first TV celebrity chef. Biography Harben was born in Fulham, London, and was educated at Highgate School. His mother, Mary Jerrold, was an actress known for her performance as the murderous Martha Brewster in the first stage production of '' Arsenic and Old Lace'' as well as many screen roles. His father, Hubert Harben, was a stage actor. His sister, Joan Harben, played Miss Mona Lott in the BBC Radio series ''It's That Man Again'' (ITMA). He learned to cook at the side of his parents, and "could scramble eggs and make mayonnaise long before I could read Thucydides or solve a quadratic equation". His first occupation was as a commercial photographer. He was then engaged to run the kitchen of the Isobar restaurant in the Isokon building in Hampstead, London from 1937 to 1940, when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force, but an eye injury put an end to his flying career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilbert Harding
Gilbert Charles Harding (5 June 1907 – 16 November 1960) was a British journalist and radio and television personality. His many careers included schoolmaster, journalist, policeman, disc jockey, actor, interviewer and television presenter. He also appeared in several films, sometimes in character parts but usually as himself – for example in ''Expresso Bongo'' (1959). Harding had a sizeable role alongside John Mills in the 1952 film ''The Gentle Gunman'', and narrated the introduction to the film ''Pacific Destiny'' (1956). He also made a couple of comedy records in the 1950s. Early life Harding was born in Hereford where his parents were employed as "master" and "matron" of the city's workhouse. His father, also called Gilbert Harding, died in 1911 aged 30 following an appendicitis operation, and so his mother placed their son into the care of the Royal Orphanage of Wolverhampton. Harding's education continued at Queens' College, Cambridge, after which he took jobs teac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olive Sloane
Olive Sloane (16 December 1896 – 28 June 1963) was an English actress whose film career spanned over 40 years from the silent era through to her death. Sloane's career trajectory was unusual in that for most of her professional life she was essentially an anonymous bit part actress, and her best, most substantial roles did not come until relatively late in her career when she was in her 50s. Her most famous film appearance is the 1950 production ''Seven Days to Noon''. Career 1920s-1940s Born in London in 1896, Sloane's first screen credit came in a 1921 silent film ''The Door That Has No Key'' produced by Frank Hall Crane, and there were five further appearances in silents up to 1925, including 1922's ''Trapped by the Mormons'', a film which many decades later became a cult favourite with midnight film aficionados due to its unintentionally ludicrous hilarity, and received a DVD release in the US in 2006. After 1925, there would be no further film appearance for Sloane until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Pettingell
Frank Edmund George Pettingell (1 January 1891 – 17 February 1966) was an English actor. Pettingell was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, and educated at Manchester University. During the First World War he served with the King's Liverpool Regiment. He appeared in such films as the original version of ''Gaslight'' (1940), ''Kipps'' (1941 - as Old Kipps), and ''Becket'' (1964 - as the Bishop of York). His collection of printed and manuscript playscripts - mostly acquired from the son of the comedian Arthur Williams (1844–1915) - is held at the Templeman Library, University of Kent. He also had an extensive collection of serial fiction and penny-dreadfuls, and this can now be found in the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books in Toronto. Collection Pettingell was an avid collector of popular playscripts and other literature which range from the 18th century to the early 20th century. In 1966, the Bodleian Library in Oxford purchased Pettingell’s collection of 800 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Thesiger
Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger, CBE (15 January 1879 – 14 January 1961) was an English stage and film actor. He is noted for his performance as Doctor Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's film ''Bride of Frankenstein'' (1935). Biography Early life Third of the four children of Hon. Sir Edward Peirson Thesiger (1842–1928), KCB, Clerk Assistant to Parliament, and Georgina Mary, daughter of William Bruce Stopford Sackville, of Drayton House, Thrapston, Northamptonshire, of the family of the Earl of Courtown, and grandson of the 1st Lord Chelmsford, Thesiger was born in London, England. He was the first cousin once removed of the explorer and author Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003), and the nephew of the 2nd Lord Chelmsford. Thesiger attended Marlborough College and the Slade School of Art with aspirations of becoming a painter, but quickly switched to drama, making his professional debut in a production of ''Colonel Smith'' in 1909. He also processed with the Men's League ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Huntley
Horace Raymond Huntley (23 April 1904 – 15 June 1990) was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' as the pragmatic family solicitor Sir Geoffrey Dillon, and other television shows, such as the ''Wodehouse Playhouse'', ('Romance at Droitwich Spa'), in 1975.. Life and career Huntley was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire (now a suburb of Birmingham) in 1904. He made his stage debut at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 1 April 1922, in ''A Woman Killed with Kindness''. His London debut followed at the Court Theatre on 22 February 1924, in ''As Far as Thought can Reach''. He subsequently inherited the role of Count Dracula from Edmund Blake in Hamilton Deane's touring adaptation of ''Dracula'', which arrived at London's Little Theatre on 14 February 1927, subsequently transferring to the larger Duke of York's Theatre. Later that year he was offered the chance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Cadell
Jean Dunlop Cadell (13 September 1884 – 29 September 1967) was a Scottish character actress. Although her married name was Jean Dunlop Perceval-Clark she retained her maiden name in the context of acting. Life and career She was born at 4 Buckingham Terrace in Edinburgh, the daughter of Dr Francis Cadell (1844-1909), a wealthy surgeon, and his wife, Mary Hamilton Boileau (1853-1907). The family moved to 22 Ainslie Place, a huge Georgian house on the Moray Estate, in her youth. She performed in the cinema and on the stage. Among her best-known cinema roles was in the Ealing Studios comedy ''Whisky Galore! (1949 film), Whisky Galore!'' (1949), as well as ''Pygmalion (1938 film), Pygmalion'' (1938) and ''I Know Where I'm Going!'' (1945). She once performed opposite W.C. Fields in Hollywood, cast as Mrs. Micawber to his Wilkins Micawber in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1935 production of ''David Copperfield (1935 film), David Copperfield''. Although Cadell remains in the released versi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey Lestocq
Humphrey Lestocq (23 January 1919 – 29 January 1984) was a British actor, best known for his roles in '' Angels One Five'' (1952) and '' The Long Shadow'' (1961), and guest appearances in the television series '' The Avengers''. Lestocq shot to fame as Flying Officer Kyte in the BBC radio wartime comedy '' Merry-Go-Round'' (1944–1948), which later evolved into ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh''. He was also one of the presenters on the TV series ''Whirligig'', the first children's programme to be broadcast live from the BBC's Lime Grove Studios. It ran from 1950 to 1956. Calling himself "H.L.", he was the stooge of the puppet Mr. Turnip, voiced by Peter Hawkins. Lestocq's catchphrases were "Goody, Goody Gumdrops" and "Jolly D", and Mr. Turnip's was "Lawky, Lawky, Lum". Family He was born Humphrey Lestocq Gilbert on 23 January 1919 in Chiswick, London, England. His parents were George Marx Gilbert and May Frances née Wooldridge, married 1911 in Brentford (Chiswick). They ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
