Alfred Marks; "The Times" Obituary

[Robert J. Boyne]

ALFRED MARKS

Alfred Marks, OBE, comedian, actor and singer, died yesterday aged 75.
He was born on January 28, 1921.

ALFRED MARKS was one of those outstanding comedians able to sustain a
wide-ranging career in the chilly climate of post-variety
showbusiness. There was nothing, he remarked, that he had not done in
the profession except ballet ("and who knows").

Marks had an uncompromisingly burly stage presence. His booming voice,
hooded gaze and inky black eyebrows, which shuttled up and down his
forehead like a pair of tiny cutlasses, could invoke unease among his
audience as well as laughter. In pantomime he played legions of
moustache-twirling villains, and, on television, more intimidating
gangster-types.

On stage he did not consider himself to be the sort of comedian who
can seize an audience's sympathy in the first minute. Contemporaries
such as Tony Hancock or Frankie Howerd were funny just by being
themselves, but Marks had a harder edge to his stage persona. He was
the tyrannical Punch figure, "the whipper rather than the whippee", as
one critic wrote. He fired off his jokes with the power of a cannon.
There were no gimmicks, no funny hats, lopsided walks or matey
catchphrases. He relied on impeccable timing and bombast.

His television work included Alfred Marks Time, which ran for several
years in the late 1950s. And his powerful delivery was particularly
effective on radio. He had been a listeners' favourite ever since his
initial broadcast on Variety Bandbox in 1944, where many comics of his
generation were "blooded".

Alfred Edward Marks was born in Holborn, London, the son of two Polish
Jewish milliners. His original surname was Touchinsky, which he
changed by deed poll after the war. He grew up in the tenements of
Aldgate in the East End and attended the Jewish Free School, where be
became head boy.

He left school to sell jewellery from a stall in Petticoat Lane, and
was swiftly promoted, because of his persuasive ability to raise a
crowd, to market auctioneer. But he was then fired for making too many
jokes and not enough sales. At the same time, he was being drawn to
showbusiness. Max Miller was appearing at the Holborn Empire and, on
Saturdays, Marks would queue for hours to watch him.

He made his first professional appearance at the age of 16. He
persuaded a reluctant theatrical agent to let him try out an act in
the Blue Hall, Islington, a cinema which staged variety shows on
Friday nights. Marks made sure to collect his fee of 15 shillings in
advance, wisely as it turned out. He had hardly opened his mouth when
the audience began to make unmistakably ominous grumbling noises.
Fortunately the Blue Hall was one of the few theatres still equipped
with a steel net curtain for the protection of youthful performers.

In 1939 Marks joined the RAF and trained as a machine tool operator.
He spent the next four years in the Middle East. Promoted to flight
sergeant, he organised concerts for servicemen in remote areas beyond
the reach of ENSA.

Marks had a fine baritone voice, and he saw his chance in Italy when
servicemen were being invited to prepare themselves for civilian life
by learning a trade. Somehow he contrived to twist this ruling, and
have his voice trained by the best teachers at the Milan
Conservatoire. The formal training stood him in good stead with his
later work in musicals, though he realised he would have never have
made it in opera. Demobilised and with a £75 gratuity, Marks began the
daunting daily rounds of variety agents.

He was down to his last few pounds when his friend Frank Muir arranged
an audition for him at the Windmill Theatre (Stephen Ward was then
resident osteopath). Comedians at the club were looked upon as
necessary evils, there to keep the hounds at bay, while the stage was
prepared for the next garish tableau and the troupe of naked girls. It
was an exhausting learning school for Marks, but the expert heckling
hardened and inured him: "If you could make those bastards laugh you
could make anybody laugh." It was the Windmill, where he stayed for 20
months, which really established him in the business.

By 1950 Marks was appearing in Manchester in High Button Shoes, and
doing radio on the side. He surprised his peers by turning down West
End offers to go into Montmartre, a Brighton summer show. The decision
proved, though, lucky for him. In the company was Paddie O'Neil, an
ex-hostess of the wartime show Navy Mixture. They were married at the
West London Synagogue on September 3, 1952.

Marks continued his steady ascent during the 1950s. His work in
broadcasting and success in a Cole Porter musical, Can-Can, at the
Coliseum in 1954 led to an offer, by the end of that decade, of a
television show, Alfred Marks Time. This was one of the first
half-hour comedy sketch shows.

With serious drama, the turning point came in 1962. Lindsay Anderson
saw him playing a Soho nightclub owner in a film, Frightened City. He
recognised a quality in Marks which he needed for the very different
character in Max Frisch's play The Fire Raisers, which he was
directing at the Royal Court. Marks rose to the occasion, and, as his
friend Jimmy Jewel was to do after his success in The Comedians, trod
a rewarding path between serious drama and comedy thereafter.

Bill Naughton's comedy Spring and Port Wine was a highpoint for Marks
during the 1960s. The play ran for two and a half years in the West
End and toured Australia.

He was back in farce in Don't Just Lie There, Say Something (1971) at
the Garrick, and then switched to a very different sort of comedy as
Sir Toby Belch at the Bankside Globe in 1973. He was excellent in
Shake speare, with a clear speaking voice, and an intelligent approach
to bringing out the humour of obscure puns. Other high points during
the 1970s included his role as Creon in Oedipus Tyrannus at the
Chichester Festival in 1974. The following year he teamed up with
Jimmy Jewel for The Sunshine Boys at the Piccadilly.

Marks never stopped working. Tours and West End appearances followed
one another in relentless sequence. Bus Stop was a hit at the Phoenix
in the early 1980s, and Marks was singing again shortly afterwards at
the Coliseum in ENO's production of The Mikado.

Recently, there was a tour of The Cherry Orchard with Susannah York.
But then, earlier this year, cancer was diagnosed and he had to
withdraw from his last role, playing Felicity Kendall's father, in the
pre-London tour of Mind Millie for Me.

Marks's films included Scream and Scream Again, a vintage horror, and
There was a Crooked Man with Norman Wisdom. His starring role in the
1959 comedy Desert Mice was a particularly apt piece of casting: it
concerned a concert party sent to entertain the troops in North Africa
during the Second World War. As for later television, Marks co-starred
with Zena Walker in the situation comedy Albert and Victoria, and
compered Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Marks did his share for worthy causes: entertaining in prisons and at
fundraising concerts for the National Playing Fields Association. He
was appointed OBE in 1976.

Marks was not at all intimidating or pretentious in private life. He
enjoyed entertaining at his home in Hertfordshire, which he bought
from Peter Sellers, and where he installed a 20-seat cinema.

He was ­ as far as any ambitious, talented man is able to be ­
satisfied with his achievements. But he was never complacent, and that
barbed sense of humour remained as sharp as ever, particularly when he
was contemplating his own shortcomings. His favourite critical notice
was a cryptic one: "Alfred Marks is a comedian who should sing more."

He is survived by his wife, his actor son, Gareth, and a daughter.
--
Robert J. Boyne, N.Vancouver, B.C.,Canada
(rjb...@direct.ca)
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"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?"
Super-Tramp (1871-1940), British poet.