Getting to Know: Norman Wisdom

Cinema Paradiso doesn't need an excuse to celebrate the life and career of Norman Wisdom. He would have been 110 in February, while October will mark the 15th anniversary of his death. But we just want to pay tribute to a timeless trouper who couldn't resist making people laugh.

Between 1953-66, Norman Wisdom starred in 16 films. They made him Britain's biggest movie export. At one point, before the Sixties started swinging, he was worth more to the national economy than James Bond. Critics turned their noses up at his patented blend of slapstick and pathos. But the public took him to their hearts and his underdog comedies attracted even bigger audiences when they were shown on television.

When a domestic crisis shifted his priorities, the workaholic perfectionist cheerfully restricted his clowning to an audience of two. He cropped up occasionally on television, but Wisdom didn't make another film for 23 years. Yet, even after he settled on the Isle of Man in 1980, his popularity remained undimmed and he continued to entertain to the grand old age of 95. Only one question remains - why on earth has nobody made a biopic about Norman's tragically turbulent childhood?

Nobody's Child

Norman Joseph Wisdom was born on 4 February 1915 in the London district of Marylebone. Father Frederick was a chauffeur, who often parked a Daimler outside the cramped single-room flat at 91 Fernhead Road, Maida Vale. Mother Maud (née Targett) was a dressmaker who often worked on stage productions in the West End. She once even made a dress for Queen Mary. But she spent much of her time trying to protect Norman and older brother Fred from their father's drunken rages.

Frederick often threw Norman across the room and once hurled him into the ceiling. No longer able to endure the poverty and the violence, Maud ran away with a man from Willesden when Norman was nine. Deemed to be a bad mother, she was refused custody and the brothers were often left to fend for themselves when their father took jobs in Scotland and even Ceylon. No wonder Wisdom later joked, 'I was born in very sorry circumstances. Both my parents were very sorry.'

Often stealing to survive, Norman hit upon a scam when a woman gave him sixpence after running into him on her bicycle on Bayswater Road. The next day, he was back colliding with cyclists in the hope of more money, but the ruse taught him how to tumble without hurting himself. As he wanted as little as possible to do with his sons, Frederick packed them off to paid guardians in Hertfordshire. The arrangement didn't last long, however, as the boys behaved badly and Frederick failed to pay his arrears. Consequently, the siblings were separated and Norman went to live in Deal on the Kent coast.

One night, he crept out of the house in his pyjamas and spent the night on the beach watching a film crew shooting a scene with the local lifeboat. His guardians only realised he'd been out in the cold when he marched in for breakfast. While in Deal, Norman bluffed that he could ride a bike in order to land a job as a delivery boy for Lipton's. He soon proved so quick on his rounds that he was poached by Home and Colonial. But he eventually returned to London to become a hotel bellboy.

Despite only being 13, he put in long hours and was promoted to commis-waiter. However, he was fired for dropping a loaded tray down a lift shaft and decided to walk to Cardiff with a Welsh colleague who suggested that they could make more money as miners. Managing to hitch a single lift that only took them a mile, the pair crossed the country by foot. But the pal's parents refused to let Norman in the house and he went down to Tiger Bay and signed on as a cabin boy aboard the Merchant Navy vessel, Maindy Court.

The crew took to the scrappy teenager, who stood 4ft 10in and weighed 5st 9lbs. On the voyage to Argentina, Wisdom learned how to box and proved so handy that his shipmates took him to a fairground booth so he could win a cash prize by lasting three rounds with a much larger fighter. Although he took a beating, Norman survived the ordeal. When he went to claim his money, however, he discovered that the others had already nabbed it. Staggering back to the ship, he was propositioned by the man on watch, who proceeded to chase him around the deck for a kiss until the skipper knocked him cold with a shovel.

Back in Blighty, Norman endured what he claimed to be the worst day of his life when he spent 25 December alone in a hostel. Having walked back to London, he sought out his grandparents and obtained Frederick's new address in Earl's Court. He had remarried and, when he saw Norman, he ordered him out of the house and the teenager vowed never to set eyes on his father again. With nowhere to go, Wisdom slept under the statue of Marshal Foch in Lower Grosvenor Gardens. Occasionally, he would sneak into cinemas to keep warm and became a fan of Charlie Chaplin, who had endured penury and parental neglect on the same streets, as Richard Attenborough would go on to outline in Chaplin (1992).

When the owner of a night-time pie stall on Victoria Station took pity on him with some scraps and a cup of Bovril, he advised Wisdom to join the Army, which took on band boys at the age of 14. Despite knowing nothing about music, Norman gave the recruiting officer a sob story and was placed on a waiting list. In the meantime, his mother had sent a birthday present to his grandparents with a return address. She talked him out of joining up and found him a post at an architect's office. He didn't last a day, however, and returned to the recruiting office to be dispatched to Aldershot for two weeks of basic training.

After a six-week voyage aboard SS Southampton, the 10th Hussars arrived in Kolkata in 1930 to take a train for the 600-mile journey to Lucknow. At last feeling as though he belonged, Wisdom could relax knowing that the Army would feed, clothe, and educate him. He learned to ride a horse, shoot, and read maps, while also becoming proficient on the clarinet, flute, bugle, saxophone, trumpet, piano, drums, and xylophone. Nicknamed 'Scruffy', he was also popular with his comrades, as he was always late and forever getting into mishaps.

Away from the regimental band, Wisdom was also a member of a small combo that played in the mess and at dances. Discovering a liking for the spotlight, he worked up solo spots. He revelled in the acceptance and the attention these brought and it seems clear that his lifelong need to be noticed was rooted in the neglect he had suffered as a kid. All Norman Wisdom wanted was to please people and be loved in return and this formed the basis of his trademark persona. Some accused him of being a show-off, who had to be centre stage. But it was a fear of returning to the bad old days of isolation and insecurity that drove him to seek recognition and affirmation in any situation.

Slowly losing his Cockney accent, Wisdom discovered that he could make his mates laugh. He tap danced in his boots, but got bigger laughs with a shadow-boxing routine that was made all the more authentic by the fact that the now 5ft 4in band boy was the flyweight boxing champion of the British Army in India. After six years, Wisdom returned to Civvy Street with a new confidence. He was employed as a telephone operator and met Doreen Brett, who worked in a chip shop. They married in 1939, only for Doreen to leave two years later and Wisdom made no mention of the liaison until he published his autobiography, Don't Laugh At Me, in 1992.

When war was declared in September 1939, Wisdom was commandeered by the communications centre in the command bunker beneath London. As an experienced telephonist, he often handled calls between cabinet members, service chiefs, and foreign leaders. He met Winston Churchill on several occasions before being called up to the Royal Corps of Signals, who ensconced him at their headquarters in Cheltenham.

When not on duty, Widom played with the unit band and stole the show during a NAAFI concert in 1940 when he stepped away from his seat and started shadow-boxing, duck-walking, and pulling funny faces. Four years later, at a charity concert in the town hall, a member of the audience came backstage and implored him to turn professional. He was no other than Rex Harrison and his dressing-room visit changed Norman Wisdom's life.

The Successful Failure

On being demobbed, Wisdom followed in Frederick's footsteps by becoming a driver for a private hire firm. He had always loved cars and would amass quite a collection during his heyday. For now, however, he had to double up as a night-time telephone operator to make ends meet. But Wisdom was determined to become an entertainer and he spent three weeks in the winter of 1945 pestering the manager of the Collins Music Hall in Islington. Eventually wearing him down, the 30 year-old was given a lowly spot on the bill as 'The Successful Failure' and made such a favourable impression with his mix of playing, singing, and clowning that he was booked for the following week by the Golders Green Hippodrome.

Wisdom's first major engagement came at The Coliseum in Portsmouth. But he used the anonymity of the provincial music-hall circuit to perfect his comic timing and hone his singing style. Such was his multi-instrumental talent that theatre orchestras used to tease him by playing out of tune, but he never missed a beat. While in Skegness, he caused a schoolgirl to dislocate her jaw because she was laughing so hard. Morever, he started catching the eye of local journalists, with a 1946 review opining: 'An unusual and most versatile comedian, Norman Wisdom, contributes two remarkable turns. He is an accomplished pianist, a pleasing singer, a talented instrumentalist, a clever mimer, and withal, a true humourist.'

In 1947, Wisdom stared a bill at the Victoria Palace in London with Vera Lynn. She noticed how nervous he was and she gave him her prime spot before the interval so he didn't have to wait to go on. He got three standing ovations and was snapped up by ace agent, Billy Marsh. It was also at the Victoria that Wisdom had his photograph taken with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who were on the second of their four UK tours (see Cinema Paradiso's article, What to Watch Next If You Liked Stan and Ollie ). This momentous year was topped when Norman married chorus girl, Freda Simpson. Initially, they lived in a caravan, but they would have two children, Nick and Jaqui, who were 12 and 11 respectively when, 22 years later, Freda left Norman for someone he claimed was 'tall and good-looking'. As the children opted to stay with their father, Wisdom had no hesitation in scaling back his activities, even though he was on the cusp of cracking America.

Following a stint at the London Casino in April 1948, Wisdom accepted a summer season in Out of the Blue at Scarborough. Also on the bill was magician David Nixon, who asked Wisdom if he would stooge for him by pretending to be a volunteer from the audience for a misfiring trick. Nixon suggested that he found a comic costume and Wisdom invested 30 shillings in a jacket that was two sizes too small and a few more bob in a tweed cap that was worn on the back of his head with the peak askew.

Wisdom called his comic creation, 'The Gump', and worked so well with Nixon that they reteamed at the London Casino in September. However, neither wanted to be part of a double act and they went their separate ways, although Nixon would become the first partner of that ever-urbane fox, Basil Brush, who headlines numerous DVDs. Use the Cinema Paradiso Searchline to check them out.

Looking back, Wisdom would be grateful for his years taking any job offered. 'I spent virtually all of those years on the road,' he wrote. 'You could keep incredibly busy just performing in pantomimes and revues. There was a whole generation of performers who learned everything on the stage.' Having made his TV debut in Wit and Wisdom, he dusted down his shadow-boxing routine for a cameo in Dicky Leeman's Terry-Thomas vehicle, A Date With a Dream (1948). In 1952, he appeared in his first Royal Variety Show and became such a firm favourite of Elizabeth II that he also performed at Windsor Castle. Memorably, when the Queen knighted Wisdom in 2000, he made the monarch laugh by pretending to trip as he sauntered away from the knighting stool.

The highlight of his music-hall phase, however, came when Maud came to see him perform and she called out to him from her seat. She came backstage and they became inseparable, as he had never blamed her from fleeing from his father. When he became a star, Norman bought Maud a flat, where she lived until 1971, the same year that Fred also passed away.

Norman

When they met in 1950, Charlie Chaplin supposedly told Wisdom, 'You will follow in my footsteps.' In many ways, he already had, as he had emerged from a Dickensian childhood with an survivor's sense of self-worth and an underdog's understanding of the link between wit and pathos. The Gump was The Little Tramp in another instantly recognisable costume and they shared a suspicion of authority, a loathing for injustice, a bashful eye for a pretty girl, and a defiant determination to do things their own way.

Having seen Wisdom on television, Rank producer Earl St John signed him to a seven-year contract. However, when Ronald Neame directed a screen test with Petula Clark, things went so badly that the studio tried to renege on the deal. When Billy Marsh threatened legal action, St John asked Jill Craigie to write a script around The Gump, as he realised that the story had to be tailored to Wisdom's particular strengths. The result was John Paddy Carstairs's Trouble in Store (1953), which sees Norman forever being fired from Burridge's department store for annoying boss Augustus Freeman (Jerry Desmonde). However, he manages to foil a robbery and win the heart of co-worker, Sally Wilson (Lana Morris), to whom he croons 'Don't Laugh At Me 'Cos I'm a Fool' in a sentimental scene that helped send box-office takings through the roof and earn Wisdom a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.

Curiously, we don't have this picture on disc at present. But Cinema Paradiso can bring you Wisdom's second Carstairs outing, One Good Turn (1954). Screenwriter Ted Willis studded the plot with incidents from the star's past, including a boxing booth sequence, as Norman tries to raise the money to buy a pedal car for a lonely boy at the Greenwood children's home, where he had himself grown up. The walking race and the encounter with an orchestra playing 'The William Tell Overture' were the highlights of a slickly constructed romp that made Norman a hit with younger audiences, as he was little more than a big kid himself.

Following a cameo in J. Lee Thompson's As Long As They're Happy, Wisdom and Carstairs embarked upon Man of the Moment (both 1955), which placed Norman at the centre of an international conspiracy after his lowly civil servant is inadvertently sent to a conference in Geneva by the Ministry of Overseas Affairs and he proceeds to thwart the powers seeking to build a military base on the Pacific island of Tawaki by granting new powers to the queen. In swaggering as 'Honourable Sir Norman', Wisdom tapped into the cocky shtick of Stan Laurel, Will Hay, and George Formby and scored another box-office hit.

Another followed with Up in the World (1956), which took Norman to Banderville Hall as a window cleaner. He falls foul of Major Willoughby (Jerry Desmonde), as he allows young Sir Reginald (Michael Caridia) to run rings around him. However, Norman ends up in prison after being accused to trying to kidnap the boy, although maid Jeannie Andrews (Maureen Swanson) believes in his innocence. Once again, there were pratfalls aplenty. But song and sentiment were allowed to slow the pace and Rank decided not to rush out a follow-up.

During the shooting of this picture, Norman met Marilyn Monroe, who was making Laurence Olivier's The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) at the same studio. Michelle Williams and Glenn Michael Ford recreated the encounter in Simon Curtis's My Week With Marilyn (2011).

Pitkin

Although his film fortunes had stalled, Wisdom remained in demand, as he topped the bill at the London Palladium. He also made regular guest appearances on TV and was working such long hours that he was hospitalised in the mid-1950s for malnutrition because he kept forgetting to eat. When he returned to the big screen in Just My Luck (1957), Norman acquired the surname Hackett and a new co-star in Edward Chapman as Mr Stoneway, the owner of the jewellery store from which the hapless dreamer gazes at window-dresser Anne (Jill Dixon) in the shop opposite. The plot shifts to a nearby racecourse when Norman places an accumulator bet with shifty bookie Richard Lumb (Leslie Phillips) in order to buy his beloved an expensive necklace.

Once again, there was a Formbyesque feel to proceedings and critics were quick to point out that Wisdom's commercial appeal was waning. However, a tweak to the formula in The Square Peg (1958) saw Norman Pitkin repair roads for St Godric's Borough Council under the watchful gaze of the pompous Mr Grimsdale (Edward Chapman). However, the pair are accidentally parachuted behind enemy lines, where Pitkin's similarity to General Otto Schreiber proves calamitous for the Nazis. Shamelessly borrowing the mirror routine from the Marx Brothers classic, Duck Soup (1933), this new direction appealed to audiences by showing that Wisdom had more than one string to his bow. It was a huge hit behind the Iron Curtain and started the cult of Pitkin in Eastern Europe.

He assumed the name Truscott for Robert Asher's Follow a Star (1959), which saw Wisdom once again take a hand in the writing. Such was his status at Rank that he also succeeded in having John Paddy Carstairs replaced and he even found roles for children Nick and Jaqui as pupils of music teacher Dymphna Dobson (Hattie Jacques) and her wheelchair-bound assistant, Judy (June Laverick). Echoes of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain (1952) can be detected in a storyline that sees fading crooner Vernon Carew (Jerry Desmonde) mime along to Norman's melodious voice. But Asher was an inexperienced director and the negative reviews prompted Rank to ditch the trusted formula and try Wisdom in something new (see below).

In between what turned out to be a couple of dead ends, Wisdom resumed his familiar persona as Norman Puckle in Asher's The Bulldog Breed (1960). Wisely, Rank brought back Edward Chapman to play the delivery boy's grocer boss, Mr Philpots. But Wisdom's main foil in this naval lark was David Lodge, who tries to turn the accident-prone klutz into a decent sailor as Chief Petty Officer Knowles. Elements from Wisdom's own time at sea crop up in a scenario that culminates in an accidental rocket launch that felt too similar to the action in Basil Dearden's Kenneth More vehicle, Man in the Moon (1960).

In addition to future Coronation Street adversaries, William Roache and Johnny Briggs, the cast also included the uncredited Oliver Reed and Michael Caine, as a teddy boy and a tar respectively. The latter, however, was unimpressed by Wisdom, whom he considered a big-head who 'wasn't very nice to support-part actors'.

While Norman had been harking back to the good old days of music-hall and silent slapstick, the British comedy landscape had started changing around him. On radio, Tony Hancock had brought a new sophistication to the sad-sack loner in Hancock's Half-Hour (type in his name to rent the TV version and Hancock's criminally underrated movies), while Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe had added zany surrealism in The Goon Show. Often in tandem with Terry-Thomas, Ian Carmichael had perfected a bourgeois variation on The Gump, while brothers Ralph and Gerald Thomas enjoyed success with the Doctor and Carry On series.

In a bid to make Norman move with the times, he became a tad more assertive in his efforts to help those who had absolutely no need of his assistance in Robert Asher's On the Beat (1962). Norman Pitkin is a car washer at Scotland Yard. But he desperately wants to be a bobby like his dad and gets the opportunity when it's realised that he looks an awful lot like Giulio Napolitani, an Italian hairdresser who is suspected of being a jewel thief. David Lodge stooged sportingly as Superintendent Cecil Hobson, while Jennifer Jayne is suitably chaste as Norman's love interest.

Contemporary critics complained that Wisdom had started to seek the audience's pity rather than its empathy and the decision to rein in the sentiment in Asher's A Stitch in Time paid off, as the film out-performed Terence Young's 007 classic, From Russia With Love (both 1963), in foreign sales. Indeed, it was so popular in Moscow that it was shown at football grounds rather than in cinemas so that more people could get in. There's much to amuse as Pitkin persuades butcher boss, Mr Grimsdale, to join the St John's Ambulance Brigade so he can enter the hospital from which he has been banned to visit a young girl who has not spoken since the death of her parents. Jerry Desmonde returns as the snooty hospital bigwig, Sir Hector, who is appalled by the chaos caused in a breakneck sequence involving stair-descending gurneys and speeding ambulances that saw Wisdom do all his own stunts.

This would be his last film in black and white and some critics have suggested that he suffered from being filmed in colour because it was harder to disguise the fact he was now in his fifties. A record 18.5 million people had tuned in to the BBC to see Norman in the 1964 pantomime, Robinson Crusoe. But ticket sales were down for Asher's The Early Bird (1965), which sees Grimsdale's Dairy do battle with Consolidated Dairies, which was run by the hissable Walter Hunter (Jerry Desmonde). There was a whiff of Ealing about the storyline, as Pitkin and Grimsdale seek to stave off a bullying competitor. Lawnmowers and fire hoses helped Wisdom raise laughs, but long-serving producer Hugh Stewart sensed that his star was beginning to feel constrained by his screen persona and was viewing horizons new.

Not Just a Gump

While he enjoyed the fame that The Gump brought him, Wisdom was keen to demonstrate his versatility. He drew encouraging notices for Where's Charley? at the Palace Theatre in 1958, a revival of George Abbott's Broadway reworking of Brandon Thomas's classic, Charley's Aunt. But Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's musical, The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd failed to reach the West End after an underwhelming provincial tour in the summer of 1964.

On screen, Wisdom defected to Bryanston for a change of pace in Stuart Burge's There Was a Crooked Man (1960). Adapted from James Bridie's 1939 play, The Golden Legend of Shults, the action centres on Davy Cooper, a demolition expert who is sent to prison after becoming caught up with a criminal gang. On his release, he lies low in a seaside town, where he discovers that the mayor is swindling the locals. With Alfred Marks and Susannah York lending their support, this was a notable departure that allowed Wisdom to play a little man without resorting to slapstick. However, this character comedy hardly set the tills ringing, as the British public wanted to see The Gump, who had scored a major hit with Bruce Forsyth on Sunday Night At the London Palladium.

Having bowed to box-office pressure in The Bulldog Breed, Wisdom took another diversion, as he tried his hand at P.G.Wodehouse's refined brand of tomfoolery in Henry Kaplan's The Girl on the Boat (1962). Ordered by his aunt to escort cousin Eustace Hignett (Richard Briers) back to Blighty to prevent him from marrying American, Billie Bennett (Millicent Martin), Sam Marlowe (Wisdom) lands in hot water when he falls for her himself. Both leads were a little too broad for the humour, but Wisdom does a nice line in comic embarrassment under the withering gaze of Bernard Cribbins's ship's steward.

Fresh from returning to Argetina to collect the Golden Flame Award for The Most Popular Artist of All Nations, Wisdom took a cameo as a boxing vicar alongside Michael Bentine in Robert Hartford-Jones's The Sandwich Man. He then made a last attempt to change his image as Norman Shields in Robert Asher's Press For Time (both 1966), as he played grandfather Wilfred (who just happens to be the prime minister) and mother Emily, as well as Tinmouth reporter Norman Shields. The pratfall count was significantly down, as Norman winds up such local dignitaries as Major Bartlett (Derek Bond) and Alderman Corcoran (Derek Francis). But the antics felt old-fashioned at a time when Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were pushing back the comic boundaries on television. It still proved to be the fifth most commercial picture of the year, but Wisdom had made up his mind that his future lay Stateside.

In 1966, he landed the role of Willie Mossop in Walking Happy, the Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn musical comedy that had been inspired by Harold Brighouse's play, Hobson's Choice, which had been filmed by David Lean in 1954, with Charles Laughton and John Mills. Having received a New York Critics' Award, as well as a Tony nomination, he was cast opposite Noël Coward in Richard Rodgers's 1967 musical take on the George Bernard Shaw play, Androcles and the Lion (which had been filmed by Chester Erskine, with Alan Young and Victor Mature in 1952).

On a roll, Wisdom was cast as Chick Williams alongside Jason Robards and Britt Ekland in William Friedkin's adaptation of Rowland Barber's novel, The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), which follows the efforts of a song-and-dance man to stop Amish girl Rachel Schpitendavel from being exploited at a 1920s New York burlesque theatre.

Perhaps emboldened by brief nudity at the end of the film, Wisdom returned home to cash in on the Swinging Sixties vibe by flashing some flesh during a bedroom scene with Sally Geeson in Menahem Golan's What's Good For the Goose (1969), which follows banker Timothy Bartlett to a conference in Southport, where he proceeds to have a mid-life crisis.

Cruelly, as the film flopped amidst a howl of critical disapproval, Wisdom was forced to endure his own domestic meltdown, as Freda had flown the nest for another man. Without hesitation, Wisdom took a sabbatical to look after Nick and Jaqui in a Sussex home that had once belonged to Anne of Cleves. His problems were compounded when he lost an appeal against paying tax on £200,000 worth of silver bullion invested in America.

Undaunted, he held on to his car collection and devoted himself to his children, restricting himself to cabaret appearances (see Norman Wisdom Live on Stage, 1989 & Norman Wisdom: Trouble on Tour, 1994) and such TV outings as Norman (1970), Nobody Is Norman Wisdom (1973), and A Little Bit of Wisdom (1974-76). He also proved a lively raconteur on Tell Me Another (1976-79) and thoroughly enjoyed being surprised on his 72nd birthday by Eamonn Andrews on This Is Your Life (1987). This was his second time on the show, as he had previously been honoured in 1957. He was also chosen twice for Desert Island Discs, following a 1953 chat with Roy Plomley with an infamous 2000 encounter with Sue Lawley that saw Wisdom pick himself singing on five of his eight selections. But even by the turn of the millennium, Norman was in no mood to retire.

Entertaining to the End

Despite his flirtation with free love in What's Good For the Goose, Wisdom was rather prudish when it came to comedy. Consequently, the prospect of his foot going down a toilet bowl persuaded him to reject the part of Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (1973-78), which made Michael Crawford a household name. Check out his exceptional slapstick displays in the Christmas Special Collection.

At the height of his powers, Wisdom had tried to write and headline a biopic of flyweight champion Benny Lynch, who had died destitute in a gutter in 1935 at the age of 33. Rank was never going to greenlight such a project, but Wisdom kept pining to display his dramatic skills in a role like Michael, which had earned John Mills a Best Supporting Oscar for David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970). He finally proved his point as terminal cancer patient Bernard Flood in Stephen Frears's Going Gently (1981), a BAFTA-winning entry in the BBC 2 Playhouse series that can be rented from Cinema Paradiso on Judi Dench At the BBC, as she plays the ward sister, alongside Fulton Mackay as bed neighbour, Austin Miller.

The raw realism of Wisdom's performance earned him some of the best reviews of his career. Moreover, it landed him the role of Vincent in the 1983 'Almost Like a Holiday' episode of Bergerac (1981-91). Yet, when he finally returned to films in 1992, Wisdom made a poor choice in Shani Grewal's lacklustre thriller, Double X (aka Double X: The Name of the Game), which sees crime bosses Edward Ross (Simon Ward) and Ignatious Smith (Bernard Hill) threaten the family of safecracker Arthur Clutten (Wisdom) when he tries to go straight. Wisdom was far more comfortable showing off the tricks of his trade on The South Bank Show the following year.

Between 1995-2004, Wisdom made seven appearances as Billy Ingleton in Last of the Summer Wine (1973-2010). He even cropped up as Mr Cole in the 1998 'She Loved the Rain' episode of Casualty (1986-). The same year saw him guest as himself in the documentary, Where on Earth Is...Katy Manning Because She'd Really Like to Know!, while the octogenarian kicked off the new century with an exercise video aimed at sixtysomethings. Fittingly, when he guested on Coronation Street in 2004, character Ernie Crabbe was a fitness fanatic.

Further telly roles followed, as Bernie Marks in the 2002 'Mens Sana' episode of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007); as Lofty Brock in the 2003 'Lofty' episode of The Last Detective (2003-07); and as Maurice Hardy in the same year's sitcomedic mini-series, Between the Sheets.

As dictator Enver Hoxha had regarded Pitkin as a worker battling capitalist tyranny, Wisdom had become a superstar in Albania. In 2001, in order to win a bet that he could have a Top 20 hit somewhere in Europe, Tony Hawkes coaxed Wisdom into duetting on 'Big in Albania', which had been co-written by Tim Rice. The star travelled to Tirana to perform the track when it reached No.18. Furthermore, he was guest of honour when England played Albania in a World Cup qualifier at Newcastle's St James's Park, where he delighted the crowd by scoring from a penalty.

Following the minor role of Winston the butler in Richard Driscoll's low-budget horror, Evil Calls: The Raven (2002), Wisdom decided to call it a day. However, he came out of retirement to take a cameo as a vicar being pestered by a fly in a café in Kevin Powis's short, Expresso (2007). Even when he was manifesting signs of Alzheimer's, he still relished acting up for the cameras for the 2008 Wonderland episode, The Secret Life of Norman Wisdom Aged 92¾, which followed Jaqui, Nick, and his wife Kim as they tried to arrange care on the Isle of Man as Wisdom's health was declining. Ultimately, it was decided to entrust him to the Abbotswood nursing home at Ballasalla, where he died on 4 October 2010 after having intuitively entertained his fellow residents for a couple of years during the afternoon sing-song. A born showman to the very last.

There was once no escaping Norman's films. But they aren't often shown on television any more. Yet they have retained a comic simplicity and a moral innocence that makes them essential viewing for young and old alike. Don't take our word for. Order a couple of titles and see the comic genius of Norman Wisdom for yourself.