JIMMY EDWARDS

:''For other people also known as Jimmy Edwards, see James Edwards.''
'Jimmy Edwards' (23 March 1920 – 7 July 1988) was an English radio and television comedy actor, best known as Pa Glum in ''Take It From Here'' and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in ''Whack-O!''.
Edwards was born 'James Keith O'Neill' in Barnes, London, the son of a professor of mathematics . He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral Choir School, at King's College School in Wimbledon, London, and later at St John's College, Cambridge.
He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in injuries requiring plastic surgery — he disguised the traces with the huge handlebar moustache that later became his trademark. He was a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
Edwards was a feature of London theatre in the immediate post-War years, debuting at London's Windmill Theatre in 1946 and on BBC radio the same year. He later did a season with Tony Hancock, having previously performed in the Cambridge Footlights review. He gained wider exposure as a radio performer in ''Take It From Here'', co-starring Dick Bentley, which first paired his writer Frank Muir with Bentley's: Denis Norden. Also on radio he appeared in My Wildest Dream. Graduating to television, he appeared in ''Whack-O'', also written by Muir and Norden, and the panel game ''Does the Team Think?'' a radio show which Edwards created. On TV he also appeared in ''Six Faces of Jim'', in guest slots in ''Make Room for Daddy'' and ''Sykes'', in Bold As Brass, I Object, John Jorrocks Esq, The Auction Game, Joker's Wild, Sir Yellow, Doctor in the House, Charley's Aunt and Oh! Sir James! (which he wrote).
In April 1966, Edwards performed at the last night of the Melbourne Tivoli theatre. His final words closed a long tradition of Australian music hall. "I don't relish the distinction of being the man who closed the Tiv. Music hall's dead in Britain. Now this one's dead, there's nowhere to go. I'll either become a character comedian or a pauper."^[1]
Edwards also starred in The Fossett Saga in 1969 as James Fossett, an ambitious writer of Victorian "Penny Dreadfuls", with Sam Kydd playing Herbert Quince, his unpaid manservant, and June Whitfield playing music hall singer Millie Goswick. This was shown on Fridays at 8:30 pm on LWT. (David Freeman was the creator.)
Edwards also worked with Eric Sykes, acting in the Sykes-penned short films ''The Plank'' (1967) (alongside Tommy Cooper); in the remake of the film ''The Plank'' (1979), alongside Arthur Lowe); and in ''Rhubarb'' (1969) (which also featured Eric Sykes. Edwards and Sykes also toured in their theatrical farce ''Big Bad Mouse'', which while keeping more or less to a script, gave them rein to ad lib, address the audience, and so forth. Also the revival of Maid of the Mountains.
Jimmy Edwards published his autobiography, ''Six of the Best'', in 1984, as a follow-up to his earlier memoir ''Take it From Me''. Amongst his outside interests were brass bands, and the Handlebar Club, in which all the members had such moustaches. Edwards was a lifelong Conservative and in the 1964 general election stood as a candidate for the party in Paddington North, without success. He was also a devotee of fox hunting, a pursuit he followed at Rottingdean, near Brighton. A Brighton and Hove bus is named after him. He had been married with a wife, Valerie; but during the 1970s he came out as a homosexual, and consequently found TV work harder to come by in what were more homophobic times. He lived in Fletching, Sussex, but died in London in 1988.

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Notes

1. Van Straten, F. (2003) ''Tivoli'' p.233. Lothian Books, Melbourne, Australia. ISBN 07344 0553 7

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★ BBC Comedy Guide - Jimmy Edwards