[This is the 16th in a series describing British
artistes who found fame on stage or in the movies]
This piece describes two well-loved British actors. Robert
Newton played a wide range of often villainous parts – his great performance as
a West Country-accented Long John Silver
was said “to have put the ‘aarr’ into ‘Pirate’” – while John Le Mesurier was
often seen in minor comic roles, sending a frisson
of pleasure and recognition through the audience. He achieved iconic status as Sergeant Watson in the hugely popular
British TV series Dad’s Army. Sadly,
both allowed alcohol seriously to undermine their health and careers.
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| Robert Newton |
Robert Newton
(1905 – 1956) was the son of an artist father and writer mother. His
grandfather had co-founded Winsor and Newton, well known purveyors of artists’
paints and supplies. Born in Devon, Newton went to school in Exeter and at
co-ed St Bart’s, Newbury. Aged 16, Newton started acting at Birmingham Rep and
soon gravitated towards the West End, appearing in Shakespeare and Shaw as well
as in the brittle comedies of his friend Noel Coward (though he also played the
lead as patriarch Frank Gibbons in Coward’s 1944 hit film drama This Happy Breed). He was Horatio to
Olivier’s Hamlet at The Old Vic in
1939. He made his film debut as uncharacteristically virtuous Jem Trehearne
tracking down a Cornish wrecking gang in Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn in 1939. During the War he still acted but he had also served
in a Royal Navy escort vessel in the perilous Arctic convoys to Russia. He made
a powerful impression as Bill Sikes in David Lean’s Oliver Twist in 1948, eyes a-rolling and snarling menacingly as he
proceeds to murder Nancy.
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| Newton's Bill Sikes threatens Oliver Twist |
Newton became an international star in 1950 with his
portrayal of pirate leader Long John Silver in Walt Disney’s Treasure Island, based on R L
Stevenson’s children’s classic. With his tricorn hat, wooden crutch, shoulder parrot,
feverish eyes, amazing accent, sharp knife and sharper wits he was
unforgettable and thrilled his juvenile audience – I know, I was one of them.
 |
| Newton as Long John Silver |
Newton was versatile and in contrast to Long John he played
a pious and humane Dr Arnold in Tom
Brown’s Schooldays (1951), an acid-bath murderer in Obsession and a disruptive returning sailor in Waterfront.
Newton’s life was irregular – he had 4 wives – and he became
a chronic alcoholic making film producers wary. In the 1950s he was drinking
wildly and fled his creditors to Australia where he made another Treasure Island version and starred in a
popular local TV series as Long John.
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| Newton as Inspector Fix |
He was recruited by Mike Todd to play Inspector Fix,
pursuing David Niven’s Phineas Finn, in the epic Around the World in 80 Days. Todd had made it a condition that
Newton kept off the booze while filming, a pledge that Newton faithfully
honoured. However when filming ended Newton went on a colossal bender and duly
expired in Los Angeles of a heart attack in 1956, aged only 50. What a pity
that a sadly premature end was the fate of this accomplished actor who had
given such pleasure to so many.
---------------------------
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| John Le Mesurier |
John Le Mesurier (pronounced “Measurer”) 1912-1983, was a
prolific English character actor, often appearing in minor roles as a
bewildered judge, a supercilious head waiter or a puzzled senior civil servant.
He was a staple in British film comedies, and made over 100 films. He was born
John Halliley in Bedford. His father was a prosperous solicitor and his mother
(née Le Mesurier) hailed from the Channel Islands. He changed his stage name to
John Le Mesurier in 1937. Educated at public school Sherborne, which he hated,
Le Mesurier was briefly an articled legal clerk before going to drama school
and later learning his craft in a succession of repertory companies including
Howard and Wyndham Players in Edinburgh, playing in drama, comedy and classics.
Commissioned a captain in the Tank Corps during the war,
latterly in British India, he had a comfortable war. In 1947 he saw statuesque
actress Hattie Jacques at the Players’ Theatre, London, fell in love and they
married, after John’s divorce from his first wife came through. John continued
his career as a “jobbing actor” delighting stage and film audiences while
Hattie also became popular in radio comedies, notably with Tony Hancock and
later in TV series with Eric Sykes. After 13 happy years their marriage broke
up when Hattie fell for her Cockney driver despite John’s efforts to tolerate a
ménage á trois. Their marital life
became a battleground of breach, reconciliation and estrangements. Hattie
always missed John until she died in 1980.
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| Le Mesurier with Hattie Jacques in happier times |
John Le Mesurier really became a British celebrity in the
role of easy-going Sergeant Wilson playing the foil to Arthur Lowe’s pompous
Captain Mainwaring in the nostalgic TV comedy series Dad’s Army about a wartime Home Guard unit in the fictional
Southern seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea. The series ran 1968-77 and its 80
episodes have been endlessly repeated. Sgt Wilson is the assistant to local
bank manager Capt. Mainwaring (pronounced “Mannering”) and the fact that he was
a cut above him socially irks Mainwaring constantly. These undercurrents and
the comic antics of the idiosyncratic Home Guard unit, with its local butcher
L/Cpl Jones, undertaker Frazer, spiv Walker, decrepit Godfrey and gormless Pike,
all contributed to the enduring popularity of the series.
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| Clive Dunn, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier in Dad's Army |
Le Mesurier had long been a heavy drinker with cumulative
ill-effects and he died of complications arising from cirrhosis of the liver in
1983, aged 70. Well-liked in his profession he penned his own wry death notice
in The Times.
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| John Le Mesurier's death notice |
SMD
3.11.14
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014
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