WILFRID BRAMBELL

'Wilfrid Brambell' (March 22, 1912 – January 18, 1985) was an Irish film and television actor, born in Dublin, best known for his role in the British television series ''Steptoe and Son''. He also starred alongside The Beatles in their film ''A Hard Day's Night''.
On leaving school he worked part-time as a reporter for the ''Irish Times'', 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.
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.
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''. 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).
He was down to play a part of Jeff in the film ''200 Motels'' with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. Brambell though left the production after an argument with Zappa, who then announced that the next person who walked through the door would get the part. Thus, Martin Lickert, Ringo Starr's chauffeur, who was returning from the limousine with a pack of cigarettes for Starr, was cast for the role.
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 homosexual at a time when it was almost impossible for public figures to be openly gay. He was arrested and charged for 'cottaging' in the early 1960s and subsequently holidayed annually in Asia. 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.
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 type cast 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 the 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' film ''Death and Transfiguration'', playing a dying elderly man who finally comes to terms with his homosexuality.
Brambell himself died in London less than three years later of cancer, at the age of 72. News of his death received far less attention than that of his co-star, and his funeral was attended by only a handful of people. He left £170,000 to his partner.

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References

★ ''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

External links

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★ Museum of Broadcast Communications encyclopedia entry

★ The dirty truth ''Guardian '' feature on the Channel 4 TV documentary on ''Steptoe and Son''.

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