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The Best House In London
''The Best House in London'' is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Philip Saville and starring David Hemmings, Joanna Pettet, George Sanders, Warren Mitchell, John Bird, Maurice Denham and Bill Fraser.Simon Sheridan, ''Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema'', Titan Books, 2011 p 58 Cast * David Hemmings – Benjamin Oakes / Walter Leybourne * Joanna Pettet – Josephie Pacefoot * George Sanders – Sir Francis Leybourne * Dany Robin – Babette * Warren Mitchell – Count Pandolfo * John Bird – Home Secretary * Jan Holden – Lady Dilke * William Rushton – Sylvester Wall * Bill Fraser – Inspector MacPherson * Maurice Denham – Editor of ''The Times'' newspaper * Wolfe Morris – Chinese Trade Attache * Martita Hunt – Headmistress * Arnold Diamond – Charles Dickens * Hugh Burden – Lord Tennyson * Avril Angers – Flora's Mother * Betty Marsden – Felicity * Tessie O'Shea – Singer * Arthur Howard - Mr. Fortnum * Clement Freud - Mr. Mason ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Saville
Philip Saville (28 October 1927 – 22 December 2016) was a British director, screenwriter and former actor whose career lasted half a century. The British Film Institute's Screenonline website described Saville as "one of Britain's most prolific and pioneering television and film directors". His work included 45 contributions to ''Armchair Theatre'' (1956–1972) and he won two Best Drama Series BAFTAs for ''Boys from the Blackstuff'' (1982) and ''The Life and Loves of a She-Devil'' (1986). Early life Saville was born Philip Saffer on 28 October 1927 at Marylebone, London (in later life he gave his birth year as 1930, a date repeated in all his obituaries), son of Louis Saffer (who later assumed the anglicized form of the family name, "Saville", chosen by his father, Joseph Saffer, a master tailor), a travelling salesman for a clothing company, and Sadie Kathleen (known as "Kay"), née Tanenberg, supervisor of Fortnum & Mason's women's fashion department at Piccadilly. He stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Rushton
William George Rushton (18 August 1937 – 11 December 1996) was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer who co-founded the satirical magazine ''Private Eye''. Early life Rushton was born 18 August 1937 in 3 Wilbraham Place, Chelsea, London, the only child of publisher John Atherton Rushton (1908–1958) and his Welsh wife Veronica (née James, 1910–1977). He was educated at Shrewsbury School, where he was not academically successful but met his future ''Private Eye'' colleagues Richard Ingrams, Paul Foot and Christopher Booker. He also contributed to the satirical magazine ''The Wallopian'', (a play on the school magazine name ''The Salopian'') mocking school spirit, traditions and the masters. Later, he said he recalled little of his schooldays, except that "it was Blandings country. The sort of place you go to die, not to be educated". After school Rushton had to perform two years of national service in the army, where he failed officer selection. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Jeffrey
Peter Jeffrey (18 April 1929 – 25 December 1999) was an English character actor. Starting his performing career on stage, he would later have many roles in television and film. Early life Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence Alice (née Weight) and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, but had no formal training as an actor. Career Theatre Jeffrey spent many years on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 25 May 1966 he appeared in ''Tango'', a play by Sławomir Mrożek at the Aldwych Theatre alongside Patience Collier, Mike Pratt (actor), Mike Pratt, Ursula Mohan and Dudley Sutton, under director Trevor Nunn. Television Numerous television roles include two guest appearances in ''Doctor Who'': as the Colony Pilot in ''The Macra Terror'' (1967) and as List of Doctor Who villains#Count Grendel, Count Grendel in ''The Androids of Tara'' (1978). In Granada Television's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clement Freud
Sir Clement Raphael Freud (24 April 1924 – 15 April 2009) was a German-born British broadcaster, writer, politician and chef. The son of Ernst L. Freud and grandson of Sigmund Freud, Clement moved to the United Kingdom from Nazi Germany as a child and later worked as a prominent chef and food writer. He became known to a wider audience as a television and radio personality. Freud was the longest serving panellist on the BBC Radio 4 panel show '' Just a Minute'', appearing in each of the first 143 episodes, and making subsequent regular appearances up until his death in 2009. He was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament in 1973, retaining his seat until 1987, when he received a knighthood. In 2016, seven years after his death, three women made public allegations of child sexual abuse and rape by Freud, which led to police investigations. Early life Clement Freud was born Clemens Rafael Freud in Berlin, the son of Jewish parents Ernst L. Freud (an architect) and Lucie Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Howard
Arthur Howard (born Arthur John Steiner; 18 January 1910 – 18 June 1995) was an English stage, film and television actor. Life and career Born in Camberwell, London, Howard was the younger son of Lilian (née Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His brother was the film actor Leslie Howard and his sister the casting director Irene Howard. He married the actress Jean Compton Mackenzie (a daughter of the actor Frank Compton) in 1936 and they had a son together, the stage actor Alan Howard.Michael Covene"Alan Howard obituary", ''The Guardian'', 18 February 2015 Arthur appeared in several television programmes such as '' Whack-O'', a school comedy in which he played the hapless assistant headmaster Pettigrew to Jimmy Edwards's headmaster, and he was in the 1960 film version '' Bottoms Up''. He appeared in many films, including ''American Friends'' and '' The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins'', and had the small role of Cavendish in the James Bond film '' Moonraker''. In 1961 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tessie O'Shea
Teresa Mary "Tessie" O'Shea (13 March 1913 – 21 April 1995) was a Wales, Welsh entertainer and actress. Early life O'Shea was born in Plantagenet Street in Riverside, Cardiff to newspaper wholesaler James Peter O'Shea, who had been a soldier and who was the son of Irish emigrants, and his wife Nellie Theresa Carr. O'Shea was reared in the British music hall tradition and performed on stage as early as age six, billed as "The Wonder of Wales". Convalescing after a serious illness in Weston-super-Mare, one day on the beach, the young O'Shea wandered off from her mother into the tent of a troupe of travelling performers and was only discovered when her mother recognised her singing Ernie Mayne's "An N'Egg and some N'Ham and some N'Onion" Career By her teens she was known for her BBC Radio broadcasts and appeared on stages in Britain and South Africa. She frequently finished her act by singing and playing a banjolele in the style of George Formby. While appearing in Blackpool ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Betty Marsden
Betty Marsden (24 February 1919 – 18 July 1998) was an English comedy actress. She is particularly remembered as a cast member of the radio series ''Beyond Our Ken'' and ''Round the Horne''. Marsden also appeared in two Carry On films, ''Carry On Regardless'' (1961) and ''Carry On Camping'' (1969). Early life Marsden was born in West Derby, Liverpool, and grew up in near poverty in Somerset. Her music teacher recognised her talent at the age of six, and became her guardian. She attended the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts and during World War II she entertained the troops as a member of ENSA. It was at this time that she met and married her husband, Dr Jimmy Wilson Muggoch, an army doctor from Edinburgh. Career From 1958 to 1968, Marsden was among the cast of the radio series ''Beyond Our Ken'' and ''Round the Horne'', where she played most of the female characters. Perhaps her most famous catchphrase was "many, many, many times", delivered in the dry, reedy tones of Bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avril Angers
Florence Avril Angers (18 April 1918 – 9 November 2005) was an English stand-up comedian and actress. The ''Daily Telegraph'' described her as "one of the most zestful, charming and reliable character comediennes in the postwar London theatre". Life Angers was born in Liverpool, Lancashire in 1918. Her father, Harry Angers, was a music hall comedian who also appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a dancer with the Tiller Girls before joining ENSA during the Second World War. She never married or had children. Angers lived in Covent Garden, London, where she died from pneumonia, aged 87. Career She made her West End theatre debut at the Palace Theatre in a 1944 revue titled ''Keep Going''. One of the early stand-up comediennes, she was capable of playing a straight man role as a foil to established male comics such as Frankie Howerd and Arthur Askey. Along with Terry-Thomas, she was one of the original cast of British television's first ever comedy series ''How ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, ''Poems, Chiefly Lyrical'', in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana (poem), Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Tennyson also excelled at short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem), The Charge of the Light Brigade", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Burden
Hugh Archibald Nairn Burden''The Daily Telegraph'', 25 July 1962 (3 April 1913 – 16 May 1985) was a British actor and playwright. Hugh Archibald Nairn Burden was the eldest son of Harry Archibald Burden, a colonial official, and Caro Cecil née Jackson on 3 April 1913 in Colombo, Ceylon. He was educated at Beaumont College and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and RADA. He appeared on stage in repertory theatre in Croydon and in London's West End before military service in the Hampshire Regiment and the Indian Army from 1939 to 1942. Burden made appearances in many UK television plays and series including ''Doctor Who'': ''Spearhead from Space'' (1970), ''The Crezz'' (1976), ''Sykes'' (1979), ''Strange Report'' (1968) and '' The Avengers'' (1963). He played the title role in '' The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder'' (1969). His many film appearances include ''One of Our Aircraft Is Missing'' (1942), ''The Way Ahead'' (1944), '' Fame Is the Spur'' (1947), ''Malta Story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnold Diamond
Arnold Diamond (18 April 1915 – 18 March 1992) was an English character actor, regularly cast in small parts on television. He graduated from RADA in 1936, and his stage work included the RSC, and three years in Agatha Christie's ''The Mousetrap'' in the West End (1954-1957). In a long career, he was cast in a variety of roles, but frequently in 'foreigner' roles, and often as policemen. Indeed, his most remembered role is probably that of Colonel Latignant in the 1960s ITC series '' The Saint'' with Roger Moore. The character of Latignant was one of the few recurring characters in the series' long run. Towards the end of his career he appeared in the BBC comedy series ''In Sickness and in Health'' as Mr Rabinsky, Alf Garnett's Jewish tight neighbour with a black hat and long beard. Selected filmography *'' Snowbound'' (1948) - Italian Hotel Guest (uncredited) *'' The Spider and the Fly'' (1949) - Police Officer (uncredited) *''Cairo Road'' (1950) - Police Major *''C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
