'Cheeky cockney' character actor who graced British screens for more than 60 years
While working on the classic Ealing comedy Hue and Cry in 1947, the actor Harry Fowler, who has died aged 85, was given sage advice by one of his co-stars, Jack Warner: "Never turn anything down … stars come and go but as a character actor, you'll work until you're 90."
Fowler took the suggestion and proved its near veracity. Between his 1942 debut as Ern in Those Kids from Town until television appearances more than 60 years later, he notched up scores of feature films and innumerable TV shows, including three years as Corporal "Flogger" Hoskins in The Army Game.
He never attained star status but created a gallery of sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as...
While working on the classic Ealing comedy Hue and Cry in 1947, the actor Harry Fowler, who has died aged 85, was given sage advice by one of his co-stars, Jack Warner: "Never turn anything down … stars come and go but as a character actor, you'll work until you're 90."
Fowler took the suggestion and proved its near veracity. Between his 1942 debut as Ern in Those Kids from Town until television appearances more than 60 years later, he notched up scores of feature films and innumerable TV shows, including three years as Corporal "Flogger" Hoskins in The Army Game.
He never attained star status but created a gallery of sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as...
- 1/5/2012
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
1943/45, PG/U, Optimum
Having released DVDs of all the familiar Ealing titles, Optimum is now bringing out largely forgotten ones like this pair that resulted from Ealing boss Michael Balcon hiring documentary film-makers during the Second World War to bring a new realism to the studio's output.
Nine Men, the feature debut of documentarist Harry Watt, director of Night Mail (1936), is a morale-raising propaganda entertainment set in North Africa but shot on a Welsh beach. Character actor Jack Lambert, then serving as an army officer, plays a tough training sergeant inspiring a platoon of recruits by recalling how nine gallant soldiers (a regional cross-section including Ealing stalwart Gordon Jackson) held off a numerically superior Italian force in the Libyan desert.
Charles Crichton's semi-documentary Painted Boats is a quieter affair, both realistic and lyrical, about life on England's canals and a romance between a boy and a girl from rival barge families.
Having released DVDs of all the familiar Ealing titles, Optimum is now bringing out largely forgotten ones like this pair that resulted from Ealing boss Michael Balcon hiring documentary film-makers during the Second World War to bring a new realism to the studio's output.
Nine Men, the feature debut of documentarist Harry Watt, director of Night Mail (1936), is a morale-raising propaganda entertainment set in North Africa but shot on a Welsh beach. Character actor Jack Lambert, then serving as an army officer, plays a tough training sergeant inspiring a platoon of recruits by recalling how nine gallant soldiers (a regional cross-section including Ealing stalwart Gordon Jackson) held off a numerically superior Italian force in the Libyan desert.
Charles Crichton's semi-documentary Painted Boats is a quieter affair, both realistic and lyrical, about life on England's canals and a romance between a boy and a girl from rival barge families.
- 1/10/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
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