Alfie Bass

Alfie Bass (born Abraham Basalinsky, 10 April 1916 – 16 July 1987) was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; his parents had left Russia many years before he was born. He appeared in a variety of stage, film, television and radio productions throughout his career.

Personal life

Alfie Bass was born Abraham Basalinsky in Bethnal Green in London's East End. He was the youngest of ten children of Jacob Basalinsky, who had fled Jewish persecution in Russia, and his wife, Ada Miller. After leaving school, he worked in his father's trade as a cabinet-maker. During this time he took part in amateur dramatics at a local boys' club. He was active in the labour movement and often attended union meetings. In 1936 he took part in the Battle of Cable Street, in which activists attempted to prevent a march through the East End by the British Union of Fascists.

At the outbreak of World War II, he was rejected by the RAF, and went to work in an engineering factory. He was later called up into the Middlesex Regiment as a despatch rider. He maintained his interest in acting by appearing in concert parties and in Army Film Unit documentaries.

In 1946, he married Beryl Bryson, a dressmaker, in Liverpool. They had a son and a daughter.

Stage career

Bass's acting career began at London's Unity Theatre in the late 1930s, appearing in ''Plant in the Sun'' alongside Paul Robeson, and as the pantomime King in ''Babes In the Wood''.

His stage career included plays by Shakespeare and Shaw. During the 1950s, he continued to direct shows at Unity, and on one occasion appeared in court (along with Vida Hope), charged with putting on a play without a licence. His stage work also included an adaptation of Gogol's short story ''The Bespoke Overcoat'', transposed to the East End of London, which was filmed by Jack Clayton in 1956, and won the Oscar for Best Short. In addition, Bass took over from Chaim Topol in the role of Tevye in '' Fiddler on the Roof'' on the West End stage.

Film career

Bass first appeared on film in wartime documentaries.Alfie Bass biography
accessed 26 Jun 2007 He also appeared in a number of feature films including ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' (1951), '' Hell Drivers'' (1957), ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (1958) and ''Alfie'' (1966) starring Michael Caine and Shelley Winters. In the latter he played Harry Clamacraft, a man Alfie meets and befriends in a sanatorium.

He starred in Roman Polanski's vampire film ''The Fearless Vampire Killers'' (1967) (British title ''The Dance of the Vampires'') as innkeeper Yoine Shagal with his daughter Sarah played by Sharon Tate. In the course of the film, he and his daughter become vampires. When a maid tries to scare him off with a crucifix, he responds with "Oy, have ''you'' got the wrong vampire!".

Bass also appeared in the "Pride" segment of '' The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins'' (1971) and had a leading role in the 1977 sex comedy '' Come Play with Me''. He has had many cameo roles, such as the Indian restaurant doorman in the Beatles' film ''Help!'' (1965), as Clouseau's seafaring informant in '' Revenge of the Pink Panther'' (1978), and in '' Moonraker'' (1979), in which he was cast as a heavy smoking hard drinker. Bass had a small part in '' I Was Monty's Double'' as a non-speaking passenger on a train.

In his book ''British Film Character Actors'' (1982), Terence Pettigrew remembers, "there was a time when no British film seemed complete without Alfie Bass popping up in some guise or other. Basically playing the same character, he has hopped chirpily from drama to comedy and into costume pieces and back like an energised sparrow. To all of these, he has added an engaging warmth and sanguinity".

Television and radio

Bass appeared as a poacher rescued by Robin Hood in the first episode of ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' starring Richard Greene, in episode 2 "The Moneylender", as well as in episode 10 of the first series which was titled "The Ordeal". He also appeared in two later episodes during season two titled "The Goldmaker" (episode 5) and "The Goldmaker's Return" (episode 22) as Lepidus, the roguish alchemist, rescued from the Sheriff by Little John (Archie Duncan). He appeared in ''The Army Game'' (1957–61), a British TV comedy series, as Private Montague 'Excused Boots' Bisley, and its sequel ''Bootsie and Snudge'' from 1960–63 (there was also a one series revival in colour in 1974), working at a Gentlemen's club with Bill Fraser as 'Claude Snudge' and Clive Dunn as 'Henry Beerbohm Johnson'. Bass additionally played the character in another spin-off, '' Foreign Affairs'', in 1964. Bass also played Lemuel "Lemmy" Barnet in the third and fourth series of the landmark 1950s science fiction BBC Radio series ''Journey into Space''.

He continued working throughout the 1970s and 80s, particularly in the TV series' ''Till Death Us Do Part'' and ''Are You Being Served?'', the latter as Mr. Goldberg, the second in a series of replacements for Arthur Brough's Mr. Grainger character (the first being James Hayter's Mr. Tebbs). As in the Mr. Goldberg role, he often emphasised his Jewish background in his on-screen characterisations.

Bass played a memorable Silas Wegg in the BBC
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