 |
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
News
|
||||
|
News
|
Dateline: 11th March, 2007
John Inman (1935 - 2007) Comedy actor John Inman has died at the age of 71. Born in Preston, Lancs, he wanted to be an actor from an early age and his first appearance onstage was in a melodrama, Freda, at the Pavilion on the South Pier, Blackpool. When he keft school he worked for a number of gentlemen's oytfitters in boith Blackpool and London before joining Kenneth Kendall's touring company as a scenic artist, his way of getting his Equity card. He made his West End debut in 1969 in Ann Veronica, a musical based on H G Wells' novel, at the Cambridge Theatre. Originally starring Dorothy Tutin, soon replaced by Mary Millar, it was not very successful, running for just 44 performances. Other West End credits included Salad Days (Windmill) in 1975 and Charley's Aunt (Adelphi: 1979), in which he played Lord Fancourt Babberley. he also p[layed in numerous summer seasons and in pantomime. His television career began in 1970 in Two in Clover, which starred Sid James and Victor Spinetti, but it was in Are You Being Served?, which began as a Comedy Playhouse pilot in 1972, which made him a household name. It ran for ten series until 1985 and his catchphrase "I'm free!" beccame part of the language. He also appeared in a number of films and is accounted one of the great Dames of modern pantomime. In his later years he suffered from ill health: in 1993 he collapsed at his home with bronchitis and was taken to hospital; in 1995 he collapsed during a pantomime and in 2004 he had to withdraw from Dick Whittington at Richmond Theatre. BTG Editor Peter Lathan writes: I met John Inman in 2002 when I was researching the book It's Behind You: The History of Panto. We sat for a couple of hours in his dressing room in the Newcastle Theatre Royal, where he was playing Widow Twankey in Aladdin, and his love of the genre shone through everything he said. I didn't have to ask many questions: one would set him off talking for five or ten minutes. He'd played comic and even principal boy, but his great love was for Dame. "I've played fifteen Mother Gooses, five Widow Twankeys and seven Ugly Sisters. I've also played Dame Trott in Jack and Nurse in Babes in the Wood. But I don't just put a frock on. To me, they're all different. "As long as I keep working, I'll do panto, I love it!" Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
|||
|
|
