David Lodge, actor (friend of Peter Sellers)
Hyfler/Rosner
<Times of London>
David Lodge, actor, was born on August 19, 1921. He died on October 18,
2003, aged 82.
Versatile British actor who shone in military and comic roles and was a
confidant to Peter Sellers
TOUGH-LOOKING, moustachioed and well-built, David Lodge was one of the most
familiar faces of the British cinema. In a career that spanned nearly five
decades and more than 150 films, he proved himself one of the screen's most
versatile talents, adept at playing military types in films such as The
Cockleshell Heroes (1956) and Guns at Batasi (1965) as well as classic comic
roles, including the fondly remembered less than successful safecracker,
Jelly Knight, in Two Way Stretch (1960).
He worked with many comedians, including the Carry On team, Spike Milligan
and Norman Wisdom, and for much of his life was closely associated with
Peter Sellers, becoming something of a confidant to the troubled actor.
Born in Rochester, Kent, David Lodge was educated at St Nicholas School,
Golden Square, London, where he enjoyed singing comic songs in the school
concerts. His father was a renowned orator and his orphaned mother a winner
of singing competitions as a child.
He served in the RAF in the Second World War and became a member of the
Ralph Reader Gang Shows, which toured military bases in Britain and Europe
in the company of other then- unknown entertainers such as Dick Emery,
Graham Stark and Ron Moody. Lodge performed a comedy spot in the shows,
telling jokes and doing impressions of Charlie Chan and Bing Crosby.
While appearing in a Gang Show in Gloucestershire he met Peter Sellers, who
was performing a zany musical act. "He used to bring the house down with his
drum solo with the sticks flying in the air," Lodge recalled. "It was
hilarious."
After being demobbed, Lodge worked as an entertainer in variety and music
halls and for a spell in a travelling circus. Throughout much of the 1950s
he became something of a fourth "Goon", working with Peter Sellers, Michael
Bentine and Spike Milligan in their variety of stage incarnations (he often
warmed up their act) and sharing their off-stage lives.
He made his film debut in the wartime drama The Cockleshell Heroes,
predictably playing a sergeant, and from then on played a host of aggressive
Londoners usually leavened with humour. He appeared in several films with
Norman Wisdom, often as a policeman exasperated by the comedian's latest
catastrophe, and for much of his career seemed part of the furniture of
British comedies playing barmen, taxi drivers, angry husbands or
card-playing layabouts.
No British war film seemed complete without the sight of Lodge marching
across a parade ground, bawling out a platoon or appearing out of the lid of
a tank somewhere in the Western Desert. Prime examples were I Was Monty's
Double, Ice Cold in Alex and The Silent Enemy.
He seemed as happy in dramatic roles as he did in the comic ones, and
although he was never considered a leading player in the Carry On series he
was in six of the films and made several appearances in the less successful
television productions in the 1970s.
Lodge had remained friends with Sellers since their days in the RAF and
appeared in 13 films with the star. It was the influence of Sellers that
helped Lodge to get one of his best roles, Jelly Knight, the genial
crop-headed giant, uninfluenced by prison routine, who works away at his
embroidery hoop in Two Way Stretch. It was a perfect comic performance and
he more than held his own against his co-stars Sellers and Wilfred Hyde
White.
He co-starred opposite Sellers in the Pink Panther films, often an
eyewitness to the comedian's mercurial psyche, explosive temperament and
on-set tantrums that could hold up filming for days. "I don't condone
everything he did," he said. "He was apt to act like a child, a spoilt boy."
But Lodge remained fiercely loyal to his friend.
When Sellers died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980, Lodge was devastated.
A year later he was even more shocked when Sellers's son, Michael, published
a series of extracts from a memoir about his father in a national newspaper.
Lodge wrote a stinging letter in defence of his late friend, saying: "To see
Peter Sellers painted as a total monster, incapable of loving or caring or
considering others, is to witness a monumental injustice to his memory."
Lodge virtually never stopped working, but his broader comedy roles in later
films were less successful. He played several dramatic roles on television
in series such as Minder, Lovejoy and LA Law.
He wrote an entertaining autobiography, Up the Ladder to Obscurity, and in
recent years devoted most of his time to fundraising for many showbusiness
charities, notably Brinsworth House, the actors' retirement home in
Middlesex. In 1982 he was made a Freeman of the City of London.
His wife, Lyn, whom he married in 1963, predeceased him.
DESSCRIBE1
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/actors/l/005.html
Erich
"I will play the lute with my foot, as I juggle these knives and hit a slap
shot 60 feet, while handcuffed to a live alligator...AND...I will act...like a
BABY!" - Fritz the Evil Butler
Brian Watson
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:bn0o5g$lne$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
> David Lodge
>
> <Times of London>
> David Lodge, actor, was born on August 19, 1921. He died on October 18,
> 2003, aged 82.
>
> Versatile British actor who shone in military and comic roles and was a
> confidant to Peter Sellers
>
> TOUGH-LOOKING, moustachioed and well-built, David Lodge was one of the
most
> familiar faces of the British cinema.
...and hardly known by name.
However, he was an excellent second-stringer to some of the best comedians
in the business and was (as has been said) versatile enough to handle
whatever work came his way.
A really great jobbing actor.
--
Brian
"When all about you is crumbling, when the arse is falling out of your
world, you need to focus on something positive in your life. Something you
can control, improve even."
Hyfler/Rosner
David Lodge
Character actor whose 'ugly mug' got him the meaty parts in British comedy.
Kevin Gough-Yates
Tuesday October 21, 2003
The Guardian
The actor David Lodge, who has died at the age of 82, is best remembered for
the string of British film comedies in which he appeared with Peter Sellers,
such as Two Way Stretch (1960), where he played the amiable safecracker
Jelly Knight, and Return Of The Pink Panther (1975). Although he appeared in
over 100 films from 1959 to 1989, he never once had what he considered to be
a starring role. He thought himself unattractive and ineligible for romantic
roles, insisting "this ugly mug of mine gets me the meaty parts".
Lodge was born in Strood, Kent, and for the first 12 years of his life,
until his father left the Royal Navy, he knew him only for tearful goodbyes
followed by joyous receptions two years later. After the family moved to
London, he attended St Nicholas school, Golden Square, Soho, and worked at
the same time as a paperboy and butcher's assistant.
On leaving school, he joined the Post Office, delivering commercial
telegrams round the City of London. When war broke out in 1939, Lodge was
recruited into the RAF.
His artistic career began, according to his own account, while he was
spudbashing and singing loudly to alleviate the boredom. The pianist Teddy
Rubach heard him and invited him to sing with the station band. By the end
of the war he was one of 12 members of Ralph Reader's Gang Show, along with
Dick Emery and Sellers, the show's drummer - a comic one, naturally -
travelling round airfields in France and Germany to entertain the troops. He
and Sellers spent at least some of their time selling black-market petrol
and cigarettes: he remained loyal to Sellers for the rest of his life, and
was best man at his marriage to Britt Ekland.
After the war, Lodge turned his hand to almost anything that would keep the
wolf from the door. He worked as a circus clown and a ringmaster, later
arguing that the experience had genuine theatrical value. Behind the clown's
mask there was no facial movement, so he was forced to act with his body. As
a ringmaster, he had to learn how to make himself heard above a dozen
others. When a touring show in which he was resident comedian folded in
Limerick, he smuggled ballpoint pens, which were very precious at the time,
back to England to repay the loan of his fare.
His determination eventually paid off. After struggling in variety, at
holiday camps, in repertory and as a warm-up artist for the Goons, he was
finally spotted on the stage in Windsor and offered a part in the film
Cockleshell Heroes (1955), as one of a team of kayakers sent to attack
German ships moored upriver at Bordeaux. It was also nearly his last film,
as the vessel that he shared with Trevor Howard capsized, but he survived
being thrown into the water while wearing a faulty frogman's outfit.
From then on, he was rarely out of work. He appeared on the stage in the
long-running Peter Ustinov play Romanoff And Juliet, and established himself
in both military films, such as Ice-Cold In Alex (1958) and Guns At Batasi
(1964), and in numerous comedies, including I'm Alright Jack (1959), The
League Of Gentlemen (1959), Carry On Regardless (1961 - five more Carry Ons
followed in the 1970s) and Dock Brief (1962). Both aspects of his screen
persona made him a natural recruiting sergeant in Oh! What A Lovely War
(1969).
Six-foot tall and muscular, he was frequently cast as a heavy, but what
endeared him to audiences was his evident vulnerability behind the
moustache. His reputation as a reliable character actor brought him roles in
such television series as The Saint, The Champions and Bless This House.
His early association with the Goons had already borne surreal, silent fruit
in The Running Jumping And Standing Still Film (1959), created by Spike
Milligan and Richard Lester. On television, Lodge joined Milligan in the
anarchic Q5 (1969) and its successors Q6 to Q9 (1975-80). In the mid-1960s,
Lodge was team manager Gerry Barford in the BBC football soap opera United!
For many years he lived as a bachelor with his parents and a budgerigar in
Winchmore Hill, north London. However, in June 1963, while working in
Yugoslavia on the Viking epic The Long Ships, alongside Richard Widmark and
Oscar Homolka, he surprised everyone. After a whirlwind 24-hour courtship,
he proposed to a French journalist and ex-model, to whom he remained
devoted.
His wedding was the source of one of his favourite anecdotes as, for him, it
struck a blow for sexual equality. His bride was asked, "Do you, Marilyn,
undertake to keep your husband in the manner to which he is accustomed, even
if he is not gainfully employed?" She predeceased him.
· David Lodge, actor, born August 19 1921; died October 18 2003
Brian Watson
"Rob Petrie" <r*@att.net> wrote in message
news:mYWkb.4553$S52....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> "Brian Watson" <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:bn1727$jbg$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk...
> > However, he was an excellent second-stringer to some of the best
comedians
> > in the business and was (as has been said) versatile enough to handle
> > whatever work came his way.
>
> > A really great jobbing actor.
>
> Brian, you might want to translate 'jobbing' for us [U.S.!]
non-English
> chaps.
> Thanks!
OK.
An actor can get identified with one particular role, especially if it is in
a long-running TV series, or type of role.
Most actors, however just go from job to job (short-term employment),
changing their performance to suit the role.
That sort of actor - the versatile sort - are quite commonly called "jobbing
actors" in the UK.
--
Brian
"Don't be afraid of playing the fool, or of letting go, or of not being
dignified, or of not being pretty, or of not being conventional, or of
thinking that someone will laugh"
S.
>> David Lodge, actor, was born on August 19, 1921. He died on October 18,
>> 2003, aged 82.
>>
>> Versatile British actor who shone in military and comic roles and was a
>> confidant to Peter Sellers
>>
>> TOUGH-LOOKING, moustachioed and well-built, David Lodge was one of the
>most
>> familiar faces of the British cinema.
Astonishingly shows 103 film performances for him in IMDB ; he was on
TV a great deal in the 60's and 70's, and would have been great in
"The Wild Geese"......
S.
MadCow57
I don't know about you, but I'm having trouble watching a resurrected Cindy
Beale on Two Thousand Acres of Sky.
Brian Watson
> > > > A really great jobbing actor.
> > >
> > > Brian, you might want to translate 'jobbing' for us [U.S.!]
> > non-English chaps.
> > > Thanks!
>
> > OK.
>
> > An actor can get identified with one particular role, especially if it
is
> in
> > a long-running TV series, or type of role.
>
> > Most actors, however just go from job to job (short-term employment),
> > changing their performance to suit the role.
>
> > That sort of actor - the versatile sort - are quite commonly called
> "jobbing
> > actors" in the UK.
>
> Oh, that's a good word for that type of 'character' actor! Thanks.
> Do you UK guys/gals use the term, 'character actor' or mostly
'jobbing
> actor'?
Jeez, I've re-written this three times so far...
I'd probably only use "character actor" for someone who actually plays an
exaggerated character - Marty Feldman as Igor in Young Frankenstein, for
example, or whoever-it-is who plays the rather spacey airhead Willow in
Buffy.
A "jobbing actor" is more a term for someone whose work doesn't have star
quality, but the guy (or gal) just gets on-stage on time and plays the part
credibly with whatever character traits the part requires and doesn't knock
over the furniture.
Anyone who does the job of pretending to be someone else for a living just
IS "an actor" (that is; excluding Simon Cowell, of course).
:-)
--
Brian
"Not quite an Angel"
Brian Watson
"MadCow57" <madc...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031021140149...@mb-m15.aol.com...
My mother tells me (VBG) this is a "soap" reference, which is why I don't
get it.
MadCow57
Cindy
> Beale on Two Thousand Acres of Sky.
>>My mother tells me (VBG) this is a "soap" reference, which is why I don't
get it.<< -- Brian Watson
British soaps are completely different from American soaps. Watch EastEnders
once and you'll see what I mean.
David Samuel Barr
>
> I'd probably only use "character actor" for someone who actually plays
> an exaggerated character - Marty Feldman as Igor in Young
> Frankenstein, for example, or whoever-it-is who plays the rather
> spacey airhead Willow in Buffy.
Alyson Hannigan plays Willow, who is exactly the opposite of a "rather
spacey airhead". She's the down-to-earth brains of the outfit,
especially in the earlier seasons.
A character actor is not someone who plays an exaggerated character; in
fact largely the opposite. Character actors are those who do not get
the leading roles (not because of any lack of talent; usually because
they don't have what used to be called matinee-idol looks) but instead
convincingly play a wide variety of supporting roles without calling
attention to themselves (hence Marty Feldman was anything but a
character actor). That doesn't mean they just played bland anonymous
roles; to the contrary, many are known for playing particular types
of distinctive (or even stereotypical) characters, e.g. stuffy English
butlers, grizzled Western chuck wagon cooks, brogue-filled Irish cops
or priests, pirate underlings, army/air force generals in UFO films, etc.
Those with lengthy careers will often develop a certain recognition factor
for audiences, who may say "I recognise him/her, but I don't know his/her
name". This is in contrast to the situation with supposed "star" actors,
where one is usually still aware that one is watching the star, not just
the character; whether it's Clint Eastwood or Adam Sandler, Katherine
Hepburn or Jennifer Lopez, one never sees them just as the character
being played but as the star with just a character veneer.
Brian Watson
What, and risk a perfectly good prejudice?
--
Brian
"What's the point in growing up if you can't behave like a kid when you want
to."
Brian Watson
"David Samuel Barr" <dsb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3F9776...@mindspring.com...
> Brian Watson wrote:
> >
> > I'd probably only use "character actor" for someone who actually plays
> > an exaggerated character - Marty Feldman as Igor in Young
> > Frankenstein, for example, or whoever-it-is who plays the rather
> > spacey airhead Willow in Buffy.
>
> Alyson Hannigan plays Willow, who is exactly the opposite of a "rather
> spacey airhead". She's the down-to-earth brains of the outfit,
> especially in the earlier seasons.
I bow to your superior knowledge on the matter.
:-)
MadCow57
EastEnders
> once and you'll see what I mean.
>>What, and risk a perfectly good prejudice?<< -- Brian
LOL, I would never ask you to do such a thing. But trust me - Britsoaps are
great TV compared to Merkinsoaps.