Wilfrid Brambell

Wilfrid Brambell (22 March 1912 – 18 January 1985) was an Irish film and television actor, born in Dublin, best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son constantly being referred to as "a dirty old man". He also starred alongside The Beatles in their film A Hard Day's Night, playing Paul McCartney's grandfather, constantly being referred to as "very clean".

Early life

On leaving school he worked part-time as a reporter for The Irish Times and part-time as an actor at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, before becoming a professional actor for the Gate Theatre. In World War II he joined the British military forces entertainment organisation ENSA.

Acting career

His television career began during the 1950s, when he was cast in small roles in three Nigel Kneale/Rudolph Cartier productions for BBC Television: as a drunk in The Quatermass Experiment (1953), as both an old man in a pub and later a prisoner in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) and as a tramp in Quatermass II (1955). All of these roles earned him a reputation for playing old men, though he was only in his forties at the time. Brambell hardly ever stopped working in his 36 year career. Although best known for 'Steptoe and Son', he achieved international recognition in many films. His performance in 'The Terence Davies Trilogy' won him critical acclaim, far greater than any achieved for Steptoe and Son, yet although appearing throughout the full 24 minute piece, Wilfrid didn't speak a single word.

Steptoe and Son

It was this ability to play old men that led to his casting in his most famous role, as Albert Steptoe, the irascible father in Steptoe and Son. Initially this was a pilot on the BBC's Comedy Playhouse anthology strand: but its success led to a full series being commissioned, which lasted throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. There were also two feature film spin-offs, a stage show and an American re-make entitled Sanford and Son, based on the original British scripts. In the latter, Brambell's part was taken by Redd Foxx.

The success of Steptoe and Son made Brambell a high profile figure on British television, and earned him the major role of Paul McCartney's grandfather in The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night in 1964. A running joke is made throughout the film of his character being "a very clean old man". This is in reference to his on-screen son, Harold, in Steptoe and Son constantly referring to his father as "you dirty old man!" (In real life too, he was nothing like his Steptoe persona, being dapper and well-spoken). In 1965 Wilfrid told the BBC that he did not want to do another Steptoe and Son series and in September of that year he went to New York to appear in the Broadway musical Kelly at the Broadhurst Theatre; however, it closed after just one performance.

In 1971 he was due to play the role of Jeff Simmons, bass guitarist with The Mothers of Invention, in Frank Zappa's film 200 Motels (a bizarre piece of casting, since the real Simmons was young, long-haired and American) but left the production after an argument with Zappa.

Personal and later life

After the final series of Steptoe and Son was made in 1974, Brambell had some guest roles in films and on television, but both he and Corbett found themselves heavily typecast as their famous characters. In an attempt to take advantage of this situation, they undertook a tour of Australia in 1977 with a Steptoe and Son stage show. However, with the pair openly despising each other, the tour was a disaster and a working relationship proved impossible. On one occasion, Brambell used bad language and was openly derogatory about New Zealand cathedrals in an interview. Despite this, Brambell did appear on the BBC's television news paying tribute to Corbett after the latter's death from a heart attack in 1982. The following year Brambell appeared in Terence Davies's film Death and Transfiguration, playing a dying elderly man who finally comes to terms with his homosexuality.

In 2002, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary film on the off-screen life of Brambell and his relationship with Harry H. Corbett, who played Harold Steptoe in Steptoe and Son. The film, titled: When Steptoe Met Son, revealed that the two men detested each other and were barely on speaking terms outside of takes by the end of the programme's run. In a series almost entirely based around the pair of them with no other regular characters, this made production of the series difficult and stressful. This tension partly related to Brambell's difficult private life. As he battled with alcoholism, he frequently forgot his lines and caused other problems both on and off the set. Brambell was also a closet homosexual^[1][2] at a time when it was almost impossible for public figures to be openly gay, not least because homosexual acts were illegal in the UK until 1967. In 1962 he was arrested in a toilet in Shepherd's Bush for persistently importuning and given a conditional discharge.^[3][4] Earlier in his life he had been married, from 1948 to 1955, to Molly Josephine but the relationship ended after she gave birth to the child of their lodger, Roderick Fisher, in 1953.

Brambell died of cancer in Westminster,^[5] London, aged 72. He was cremated on 25th January 1985 at Streatham Park Cemetery and his ashes were scattered in the glade garden, tree 3.

Legacy

The Curse of Steptoe, a BBC TV play about Brambell and his co-star Harry H. Corbett, was broadcast on 19 March 2008 on digital BBC channel BBC Four, featuring Phil Davis as Brambell. The first broadcast gained the channel its highest audience figures to date, based on overnight returns.^[6]

References

Further reading

This article's further reading may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive, less relevant or many publications with the same point of view; or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.

• Harry H Corbett, Bristol Evening Post (England), June 7, 2005.
• Home is where the hurt is; Steptoe and Son was a huge sit-com hit, but behind the scenes the laughter died, Thomas Quinn, The Herald / Sunday Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), August 17, 2002
• '‘Brambell, (Henry) Wilfrid (1912–1985)’', David Parkinson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Filmography

External links

• Wilfrid Brambell at the Internet Movie Database
• Museum of Broadcast Communications encyclopedia entry
• Wilfrid Brambell biography at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• The dirty truth Guardian feature on the Channel 4 TV documentary on Steptoe and Son.
• Wilfrid Brambell at Find a Grave