Originally posted by Gangster Octopus
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Comedy Actors Who Died Young
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Originally posted by Various Artist View PostClosing credits I think you mean, i.e. the "You have been watching..."?
I could swear that every single time we watched an episode of Dad's Army when I was growing up in the early '90s, my dad (who's very good at belabouring a point oblivious to how many times he's done so before) would almost literally perform this "roll call" of which you speak: as each member of the cast marched past during the credits, he'd go "He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.", as if making us newly aware. Since all of those concerned (Messrs Lowe, Le Mesurier, Laurie, Ridley, Beck etc) had been gone since about 1984 at the latest, he must have been firmly set in that groove for a fair number of years already. Since the only ones to escape this verbal scythe were Clive Dunn (who would live until 2012) and Ian Lavender (who is of course still going), he never had to actually change the litany for the thick end of 30 years.
(His direct stooges have also passed on: Bill Pertwee - Mr Hodges, the ARP Warden - died just four years ago, while Edward Sinclair - Mr Yeatman, the verger - passed away as early as 1977.)
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Originally posted by treibeis View PostDoes Gary Olsen (42) count as a comedy actor?
https://youtu.be/yPVMi9MxabM
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Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View PostYes, he did speak with a certain gravitas, didn't he.
And, to be fair, he wasn't actually an actor, but he was very funny.
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Originally posted by Jah Womble View PostRemarkably, Frank Williams - who played the vicar, Timothy Farthing, in Dad's Army - is the only other original cast member still around: he's just 86, which surprises me given that he was playing what seemed like a much older man back in 1968. Was he seriously only in his late thirties?
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Originally posted by Various Artist View PostHeh, yes this always gets me too every time I see an episode now I boggle gently at the fact he was only about 40, and has outlived Teddy Sinclair (Mr Yeatman) by 40 years and counting. Rather like Clive Dunn he looked aged beyond his years, albeit in Williams' case perhaps due to his baldness, glasses and general air of 'baffled elderly clergyman' rather than Dunn's makeup and 'old man' performance. Neither of them really looked any older for decades after the programme ended; they just sort of grew into their faces.
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Originally posted by Various Artist View PostHeh, yes this always gets me too – every time I see an episode now I boggle gently at the fact he was only about 40, and has outlived Teddy Sinclair (Mr Yeatman) by 40 years and counting. Rather like Clive Dunn he looked aged beyond his years, albeit in Williams' case perhaps due to his baldness, glasses and general air of 'baffled elderly clergyman' rather than Dunn's makeup and 'old man' performance. Neither of them really looked any older for decades after the programme ended; they just sort of grew into their faces.
(Not that I wished him dead, obviously.)
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There's a danger of judging Dunn's age by today's standards. There were 51 year old grandads in January 1971, when Dunn turned 51 and the song hit #1. The average age of marriage was 21 and many 51 year old son would have been working since they were 15, eating shit food and never visiting the doctor.
At the same time, Arthur Lowe was only 55, John Le Mesurier 58.
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Originally posted by elguapo4 View PostI'm fairly sure the reverend Farthing wasn't meant to be as old as the rest of them, surely a late thirties vicar would be exempt from military service anyway
Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View PostThere's a danger of judging Dunn's age by today's standards. There were 51 year old grandads in January 1971, when Dunn turned 51 and the song hit #1. The average age of marriage was 21 and many 51 year old son would have been working since they were 15, eating shit food and never visiting the doctor.
At the same time, Arthur Lowe was only 55, John Le Mesurier 58.
Your last sentence is quite arresting, though – I'd have thought there was a bigger gap in age to Lowe and Le Mesurier than there was. Neither man enjoyed very good health though, I believe, which probably helps explain that.
In the same vein, William Hartnell's first Doctor in Doctor Who is universally thought of as an 'elderly man', yet Hartnell was only 55 when he started playing him – the same age as Peter Capaldi when he took the part 50 years later. By extension, Hartnell was still only 58 when he was forced to quit the show due apparently to chronic ill-health, and last appeared in 1973's 10th-anniversary special "The Three Doctors" as an extremely frail 65-year-old.
Here he is at 55:
And here's 8th Doctor Paul McGann at 54 in the 50th anniversary mini-special "The Night of the Doctor", the handsome bastard:
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Perhaps because of the genuine frailty of real "old" men at that time, there were a few comic actors who "aged up". David Jason was the not paticularly convincing old lag Blanko in Porridge, while Warren Mitchell hadn't reached 40 when he started playing Alf Garnett - 19 years younger than Dandy Nichols, and only 10 or so years older than his daughter Una Stubbs, and five years older than Scouse git Antony Booth.
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Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View PostThere's a danger of judging Dunn's age by today's standards. There were 51 year old grandads in January 1971, when Dunn turned 51 and the song hit #1. The average age of marriage was 21 and many 51 year old son would have been working since they were 15, eating shit food and never visiting the doctor.
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Originally posted by tracteurgarçon View PostWhy wouldn't he? He was in one of the most watched British sitcoms of the '90s.
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