Veteran British comic actor Norman Wisdom has died at the age of 95.
The actor died peacefully at the Abbotswood Nursing Home on the Isle of Man yesterday, having suffered a series of strokes in the last six months.
Wisdom rose to fame as the star of slapstick film comedies of the 1950s and 60s in which his bumbling, gauche underdog characters would eventually triumph over adversity to win success and the girl.
Charlie Chaplin is said to have called Wisdom his favourite clown.
"Norman was one of the family, and although he was my client he was probably my best friend," said Johnny Mans, his agent for over 30 years. "I thought he'd live to 100."
In his later years, Wisdom also won acclaim for straight stage and television roles.
His films included Trouble in Store, which earned him a BAFTA Award, and in 1966 he was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in the Broadway musical Walking Happy.
In a bizarre twist to his career, he became an icon in hardline communist Albania, where his movies were among the few Western cultural products permitted. After the overthrow of communism he visited the country and was warmly welcomed.
"It was like Beatlemania in Albania," Mans said, recalling their visit to the country in 1995. "Even the men would come up to him and kiss him."
Born Norman Wisden on February 4th, 1915, the young Wisdom had a tough upbringing in Marylebone, London. The son of a chauffeur and a dressmaker, he had one older brother Fred. His parents divorced when he was nine and he was brought up by his father.
Money was short and Norman’s father was often away for long periods, either driving, or in a drunken rage.
Wisdom left school at 13 and took a job as an errand boy for Lipton’s Teas for 50p a week.
His first break into showbiz came in 1946 at a music hall in Islington, north London, and he won a place in his first Royal Command Performance in 1952. Rank soon snapped him up for a seven-year contract.
In 1981, Wisdom broke with the slapstick tradition and played a doomed cancer victim in a harrowing BBC television play. He won widespread acclaim for his portrayal of a retired salesman in Going Gently opposite Fulton MacKay.
He married showgirl Freda Simpson when he was 27 but they divorced in 1969. They had two children, Nick and Jacqui.
Agencies