Focus On...John Le Mesurier
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Focus On...John Le Mesurier |
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John Le Mesurier was born John Elton Halliley on 5th April 1912 at Chaucer Road, Bedford. Not long after he was born, the family moved to Bury St. Edmunds. He was educated at Grenham Houseat Birchington-on-Sea. After failing his entrance exams for the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, he attended Sherborne in Dorset. After leaving school, John went to work as an articled
clerk at an old established Bury firm of solicitors called Greene and Greene, and six years later, just before his 21st birthday, John signed on for the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, using his
mother's maiden name, Le Mesurier, as his stage name. He started on the same day as Alec Guinness.A few months later, he had his first professional engagement at the Palladium Theatre, Edinburgh, followed not long after by a spell with Oldham Rep. and then another Rep. company in Sheffield. After touring in various shows, John married June Melville just before the outbreak of World War Two.
In 1940, John joined the Royal Armoured Corps at Tidworth on Salisbury Plain and he attained the rank of Captain. He served at home and in India, where John's acting career was put on hold for 2 years, until he was demobbed in 1945. In 1946 John's marriage to June ended and one night, while visiting the Players Theatre in Villiers Street, near Charing Cross, he met Hattie Jacques and, not long after, he moved in with her. At this time, Hattie was a member of the ITMA team. In 1948 John made his first film, Escape From Bradmoor, which was to be the first of over 100 films, including Private's Progress, I'm Alright Jack, Brothers in Law and Carlton Brown of the FO.
John and Hattie were married in April 1952 and had two sons, Robin and Kim. Hattie eventually joined the cast of the radio Hancock's Half Hour in 1956 and John appeared in his first Hancock's Half Hour TV show in 1957. John was to appear in a number of the Hancock's Half Hour TV shows: The Lawyer: The Crown V James, The New Nose, The Horror Serial, The Servants, Lord Byron Lived Here, The Cruise and The Cold. He was also in the "Hancock" series: The Lift and the ATV "Hancock" series: The Politician.
John and Tony were very good friends and John appeared in all of Tony's films except Orders Are Orders. John was also considered for the part of Eric Sykes and Hattie's next door neighbour in the Sykes programmes but John declined the part and it was given to Richard Watts. In 1965, John and Hattie were divorced and in 1966 John married Joan Malin. After making the film Our Man in Marakesh, John then made the classic TV show George and the Dragon with Sid James and Peggy Mount. The part for which John is perhaps most famously known is for the role of Sergeant Arthur Wilson in Dad's Army which began in 1968. John was originally going to play the Captain and Arthur Lowe the Sergeant but this decision was soon reversed. The show ran for 12 series and ended in 1977, after spawning a spin-off film in 1971.
John's other comedy roles included appearances in The Goodies, Doctor at Large, The Dick Emery Show and Worzel Gummidge. In 1971 John earned a Society of Film and Television Arts "Best Television Actor" award for his portrayal of Kim Philby in Dennis Potter's play Traitor. His other serious roles included Brideshead Revisited and the part of Marley's ghost in the BBC TV version of A Christmas Carol.
John also did advertisements for British Airways with Arthur Lowe and also provided the voice-over for Homepride Flour, proclaiming, "Graded grains make finer flour". John's last film was in 1980 when he appeared alongside Peter Sellers in The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu, and his last TV appearance was with Anthony Hopkins in A Married Man. However, his last work was on radio when he performed in a Dad's Army spin-off called It Sticks Out Half A Mile. Three days later, John died from an abdominal illness; he'd been a heavy drinker for many years and suffered with cirrhosis of the liver. The message that appeared in The Times Obituary column said that John had, "...simply conked out".
In 1984, John's autobiography, "A Jobbing Actor", was published posthumously and in 1994, the Dead Comics Society erected a plaque to his memory at his former flat in Baron's Court with various surviving members of the Dad's Army cast in attendance.
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