Norman Wisdom

Sir Norman Wisdom, OBE
Born	Norman Wisdom
Years active	1948 - 2004, 2007
Height	5'2 (five ft two in)
Spouse	Freda Simpson (1947-69)

Sir Norman Wisdom, OBE (born 4 February, 1915) is an English comedian, singer and actor.

Biography

Norman Wisdom was born in in the London district of Marylebone on 4 February 1915. His parents were Frederick and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), who married in Marylebone in 1912. His father was a chauffeur and his mother a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres. In his 2003 autobiography called My Turn Wisdom says the family resided at 91 Fernhead Road, London W9, where they slept in one room and bathed in a tin tub. He said his first memory was of "sitting on the stone steps outside the house looking up at the sky - this was during World War One - when suddenly an enormous German Zeppelin drifted silently into sight". The nearby Paddington Recreation Ground may have been the target as searchlights had been set up there, and as a result this area of London was heavily bombed, including the largest London World War One bomb which landed in Warrington Crescent, Maida Vale - only half a mile away from the Wisdoms' home on 7 March 1918.

Wisdom recalls that his father drank and often quarrelled with Maud and after the rows, his father would go round the corner to the Chippenham Pub on Shirland Road. Wisdom’s mother left when he was nine, and after his parents divorced, he and his brother were left in the charge of their father, who disowned them. Both boys continued to attend St Luke's School in Fernhead Road and during this period, he and his elder brother would have to go to school barefoot - as the area was one of extreme poverty, this was not unusual. After a period in a childrens home in Deal, Kent, Wisdom ran away from home when he was 11, but returned to become an errand boy with a grocery store on leaving school at 13. Later he was a coal-miner, a waiter, a pageboy and a cabin-boy in the Merchant Navy. He later claimed all the work at such a young age led to his left leg being half an inch (2.25 cm) shorter than his right.

British Army

On the outbreak of World War Two, Wisdom joined the 10th Hussars regiment of the British Army, and saw service in India. Like many away from home, he discovered his talent for entertainment. Wisdom discovered his while performing a comedy boxing routine in an army gym, and began to develop his talents as a musician and stage entertainer.

Becoming a bandsman to pursue his interests, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals in 1943 at the Moray House Hotel (now the Carlton Hotel) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. After a charity concert at the Cheltenham Town Hall, actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to turn professional.

Theatre

Leaving the army in 1946, Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the advanced age of 31 - but his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. Initially the straight man to the magician David Nixon, he had adopted the suit that would remain his trademark - tweed cap askew with peak turned up, too-tight jacket with only the top button fastened, barely-better trousers, crumpled collar and tie awry. The character known as "the Gump" was the perfect antidote to the bleak austerity of post-war Britain, and was to dominate Wisdom's film career.

A West End star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. Sir Charlie Chaplin called Wisdom his "favourite clown."

Film career

Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with Trouble in Store in 1953. Their cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of the films made a generation earlier by George Formby. Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences and Wisdom's films out sold Sean Connery's James Bond features from 1955 through till 1966, and in some unlikely overseas markets helped Rank stay afloat financially when their more expensive film projects were unsuccessful.

The films usually involved the Gump character in some manual occupation, in which he is barely competent, and in a junior position to a "straight man" superior, often played by Edward Chapman. They benefited from Wisdom's capacity for physical slapstick comedy and his skill at creating a sense of the character's helplessness. The series often contained a romantic subplot; the Gump's inevitable awkwardness with women is a characteristic shared with the earlier Formby vehicles.

Despite a move to filming in colour, by the mid-1960s Wisdom's commercial film appeal was in eclipse. The obvious incongruity of a fifty-year old man playing the Prime Minister's grandson in Press for Time (1966) counted against him - though Wisdom's age was inaccurately reported for many years.

Later career

In 1966, Wisdom went to America to star on Broadway in the James Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn musical comedy Walking Happy. His highly-acclaimed performance was Tony Award nominated. He also completed his first American film as a vaudeville comic in The Night They Raided Minsky's. After a typical performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the opportunities which might have been in the United States were cut short when he had to return to London when his second wife left him. His subsequent career was largely confined to television and he toured the world with his successful cabaret act.

He won critical acclaim in 1981 for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the play Going Gently, for which he won a BAFTA. On 11 February, 1987 Norman Wisdom was the subject of Thames Television's This Is Your Life for the second time.

He became prominent again in the 1990s, helped by the young comedian Lee Evans, whose act was heavily influenced by Wisdom's work. The highpoint of this new popularity was the knighthood he received in 1999 from Queen Elizabeth II. Also in the 1990s he appeared in the recurring role of Billy Ingleton in the long-running BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine. The role was originally a one-off appearance, but proved so popular that he returned as the character on a number of occasions.

In 2004 he made a cameo appearance in Coronation Street playing fitness fanatic pensioner Ernie Crabbe.

Popularity in Albania

Wisdom is a well-known and loved cult film icon in Albania and was the only Western actor whose films were allowed in the country during the Communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. Tony Hawks uses this fact to much comic effect in his book and TV series One Hit Wonderland where the two unite, along with Sir Tim Rice to release a single Big In Albania in an attempt to enter the Albanian pop charts. He is known as "Mr. Pitkin" in Albania, after the character he played in his films.

The archetypal Wisdom plot where the common working man gets the better of his bosses was considered ideologically sound by Hoxha. In 1995, he visited the post-Stalinist country, where to his surprise he was greeted by many appreciative fans including the then-president of Albania, Sali Berisha. His fondness for Brighton & Hove Albion is renowned in Albania and consequently there are many 'Seagulls' fans in Albania.

On a visit in 2001 which coincided with the England football team playing Albania in Tirana, his presence at the training ground even eclipsed that of David Beckham.

Retirement

Wisdom announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on his ninetieth birthday, 4 February, 2005. He announced that he intended to spend more time with his family, playing golf and driving around the Isle of Man, where he lives.

In mid-2006, after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm, Wisdom was flown by emergency helicopter to hospital in Liverpool, and after a few days was fitted with a heart pacemaker.

In 2007, he made a singular return to acting in the independent movie Expresso, shot in January and which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on the 27 May. In the film which raised funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, Wisdom plays a vicar plagued by a fly in a cafe. The film's producer Nigel Martin Davey gave him only a visual role so he would not have to remember any lines, but on the day Wisdom was alert and had his performance changed to add more laughs.

Personal life

Wisdom married his second wife Freda Simpson, who was a dancer, in October 1947, and they had his only two children: Nicholas (born 1953) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969, and Wisdom was granted full custody of the children.

Wisdom is a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion F.C.. He enjoys golf and is a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats.

A cultural icon in the Isle of Man, he lived in a house named Ballalough – Gaelic for "house of laughs" - in Andreas for 27 years, becoming involved in the community through both performance and charity. A lover of cars, he owned a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, until his age and failing health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness to drive test, and they were sold in September 2005.

A supporter of various Manx charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for Manx girl group Twisted Angels for their single called LA in support of local charity Project 21. There is a bronze statue of Wisdom on a bench outside Douglas Town Hall, Ridgeway Street. In 2007, a Norman Wisdom themed bar opened at the Sefton Hotel, Douglas, called Sir Norman's. The bronze statue has since been moved and is now outside the bar. It has many pictures of all his films on the walls and TV screens showing some of his old films.

Health decline

In August 2007, newspapers of the Daily Mail group and the Isle of Man Newspapers reported that Sir Norman was in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla, where he had become resident from 12 July, 2007.

On release of Expresso to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, due to his suffering from vascular dementia. It was also reported that his children had secured full power of attorney over Sir Norman's affairs, and having sold off his Epsom, Surrey flat were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise monies to fund his longer term care.

In an exclusive interview on 27 August with the News of the World, journalists were given access to Wisdom's room at the home, where he claimed to be happy and content in a routine which his family and carers considered kept him safe in spite of the memory losses associated with his condition.

On 16th January 2008, at 21.50 GMT, BBC2 aired "Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4," a documentary highlighting the dilemma of coping with an aging parent. In a spoken trailer on BBC Radio 5 live for the show, and in later publicity interviews undertaken by his family, it was stated that Sir Norman's memory loss is now so severe that he no longer recognises himself in his own films.

Filmography

• A Date with a Dream (1948)
• Wit and Wisdom (1948-1950, TV)
• Trouble in Store (1953)
• One Good Turn (1954)
• As Long as They're Happy (1955)
• Man of the Moment (1955)
• Up in the World (1956)
• Just My Luck (1957)
• The Square Peg (1958)
• Follow a Star (1959)
• There Was a Crooked Man (1960)
• The Bulldog Breed (1960)
• On the Beat (1962)
• The Girl on the Boat (1962)
• A Stitch in Time (1963)
• The Early Bird (1965)
• The Sandwich Man (1966)
• Press for Time (1966)
• Androcles and the Lion (1967, TV)
• The Night They Raided Minsky's (The Night They Invented Striptease) (1968)
• What's Good for the Goose (Girl Trouble) (1969)
• Norman (1970, TV)
• Music Hall (1970, TV)
• Nobody Is Norman Wisdom (1973, TV)
• A Little Bit of Wisdom (1974, TV)
• BBC Playhouse: "Going Gently" (1981, TV)
• BBC Bergerac: "Almost Like a Holiday" (1983, TV)
• The 1950s: Music, Memories & Milestones (1988, TV)
• Double X: The Name of the Game (Double X, Run Rabbit Run) (1992)
• Last of the Summer Wine episode "The Man Who Nearly Knew Pavarotti" (1995, TV)
• Last of the Summer Wine episode "Extra, Extra!" (1996, TV)
• Where on Earth Is ... Katy Manning (1998, TV)
• Last of the Summer Wine episode "The Coming of the Beast" (2000, TV)
• Last of the Summer Wine episode "A Musical Passing for a Miserable Muscroft" (2002, TV)
• Dalziel and Pascoe episode "Mens Sana" (2002, TV)
• Coronation Street (2004, TV)
• Last of the Summer Wine episode "Variations on a Theme of the Widow Winstanley" (2004, TV)
• Expresso (2007)
• Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4 (2008, TV)

CDs and vinyl

• I Would Like to Put on Record
• Jingle Jangle
• The Very Best of Norman Wisdom
• Androcles and the Lion
• Where's Charley?
• Wisdom of a Fool
• Nobody's Fool
• Follow a Star
• 1957 Original Chart Hits
• Follow a Star/Give Me a Night in June
• Happy Ending/The Wisdom Of A Fool
• Big in Albania - One Hit Wonderland

Books

• Lucky Little Devil: Norman Wisdom on the Island He's Made His Home (2004)
• My Turn: Autobiography (2002)
• Don't Laugh At Me / Cos I'm a Fool (1992) (two volumes of autobiography)
• Trouble in Store (1991)

Norman also played a big part in the Tony Hawks book, One Hit Wonderland. Tony and Norman had a top twenty hit in Albania in 2002 with a song called "Big in Albania" written by Hawks and Oscar-winning lyricist Tim Rice.

External links

• Sir Norman Wisdom - Official UK Website, Photographs & Video Clips.
• Sir Norman Wisdom - UK Website
• Norman Wisdom at the Internet Movie Database
• Sir Norman's final stage bow — BBC News

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