Arthur Lowe
Arthur Lowe (born September 22, 1915 in Hayfield, Derbyshire , England , † April 15, 1982 in Birmingham , England) was a British film and theater actor . He rose to a national stature primarily through his role as Captain George Mainwaring in the British sitcom Dad's Army , which he played for over nine years.
For his performance in the comedy The Successful ( O Lucky Man! ), The British Society of Film and Television Arts (later BAFTA) awarded Lowe the award for Best Supporting Actor in 1973.
Life
Youth and war effort
Arthur Lowe was born on September 22, 1915, the only son of Arthur Lowe Sr., a railroad worker, and Mary Annie Lowe, nee Ford, in Hayfield, UK. He grew up in Manchester and attended Chapel Street Junior School there . Lowe's early plans to enroll in the Merchant Navy failed because of his poor eyesight. Instead, he worked in smaller shops and factories, eventually in an aircraft factory.
With the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the British Army and served as a radio technician up to the rank of Sergeant Major . With the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry he was used in Palestine and Alexandria. There Lowe staged theatrical performances as part of a drama group to entertain the other soldiers. He had already made his first experiences with the theater before the outbreak of the war as a stage worker at the Manchester Palace of Varieties . He amused his audience with imitations of superiors and the self-created figure of the German officer Colonel von Kramm.
Beginnings in theater and television
After the end of the war, Lowe wanted to continue on this path. Although his parents did not share this enthusiasm, Arthur Lowe Sr., who had established contacts with traveling acting groups through his work, arranged a meeting with Frank H. Fortescue at the Hulme Hippodrome in Manchester in January 1946 . Lowe joined a stage acting group and made his first professional appearance in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path on the stage of the Hulme Hippodrome .
Lowe soon began an affair with his married colleague Joan Cooper, who starred in his first engagement in 1946. After a confession to Cooper's husband, he agreed to the divorce. Lowe and Cooper married in 1948 and had a mixed but mostly happy marriage until Lowe's death. Their only son Stephen was born in 1953. He published his father's biography under the title Arthur Lowe - A Life in 1996 .
A move to London boosted Lowe's career. With plays like Call Me Madam , Pal Joey and The Pajama Game , he earned a reputation as a character actor in London's West End in the following years . Already at the age of 30 years, the only 1.63-meter-tall lion tended to go bald prematurely.
In the late 1940s / early 1950s, Lowe took part in various BBC films and television productions with increasing intensity . Sidney Gilliat's 1948 drama London Belongs to Me was his first film, but does not include any credits. For the first time he was signed up to Robert Hamer's nobility in 1949 ( Kind Hearts and Coronets with Alec Guinness ). During the 1950s he played among others in the movies To Live in Peace (1951), Reluctant Bride (1955) and The Green Man ( The Green Man , 1956) and the six-part miniseries The Three Musketeers (Engl .: The Three Musketeers , 1954) with.
Coronation Street
In 1960, Lowe, who at the time referred to himself as an " adequately paid supporting player " (" appropriately paid supporting actor "), got a role in the television series Coronation Street , which was initially designed for three episodes. In the end, Lowe played the lay preacher Leonard Swindley for five years, despite fears that he would be identified with the role. His portrayal enjoyed such great national popularity that after the series ended in 1965, Lowe still embodied the character in two spin-offs, Pardon the Expression and Turn Out the Lights . At first he liked Swindley very much, but after eight years he had grown tired of the role: “ For eight years it was like living with a Siamese twin. There seemed to be no escape from Swindley. Sometimes I loathed him. "(" It was like living with a Siamese twin for eight years . It seemed like I couldn't escape Swindley. Sometimes I detested him. ").
In order not to get caught up in the series, Lowe only spent six months a year working on Coronation Street , with the rest of the time devoting himself to other projects. He continued to appear in theaters in London's West End, including with John Osbourne's Inadmissible Evidence at the Royal Court Theater and in The Tempest at the National Theater .
Lowe never revealed much about his personal life. His wife Joan, who had not worked since the birth of their son, suffered from depression due to the spatial separation. During the busy period around 1970, the two spent their free time together mainly restoring a Victorian yacht. The couple had bought the Amazon in 1968 as a "therapeutic agent" against depression and tried to repair it using original plans from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Lowe called the ship his retreat, which others would have in a country house; he preferred the open sea. He didn't like being identified with his characters or even being referred to by their names in the public and press. In 1970 he told the Radio Times : “ An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays. "(" An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has backstage, the better. A blank canvas on which to paint the characters he plays. ") Lowe has always been an active supporter of British Conservaty Party.
Dad's Army
Initially only third choice, Lowe was cast to the role of awkward Captain George Mainwaring on the sitcom Dad's Army in 1968 . Written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the series is about the British Home Guard during World War II. She was voted # 4 of the Top 100 UK Sitcoms in a 2004 BBC poll. By far his most popular and over time attributed to him role played Lowe in nine seasons (1968-1977), a movie (1971), a radio series (1973-1975) and a stage show (1975). The reviews attested him a memorable appearance and high comedic timing. During this time, the actor also managed to get rid of the reduced image that the Swindley character had imposed on him. While filming Dad's Army , Lowe compared the two characters: “ After two years in Dad's Army , I think I can safely say that Swindley is dead. May he rest in peace. Mainwaring is not the same sort of character at all. People do not find it so easy to identify themselves with him. Perhaps he is not as real as old Swindley. "(" After two years in Dad's Army , I can safely say that Swindley is dead. May he rest in peace. Mainwaring is a whole different kind of character overall. People don't identify with him so easily. Maybe works he's not as realistic as Swindley. "). Mainwaring is much more a joke, a caricature from a time almost four decades ago.
Other comedy series in which Arthur Lowe starred during and after the end of Dad's Army were less successful, making Captain Mainwaring the high point of his television career. Among other things, he was in the 1970s in the series Doctor at Large (1971), The Last of the Baskets (1971–1972), Bless Me, Father (1978–1981) and Potter (1979–1980) as well as various commercials see.
Among Lowe's movies, those in collaboration with director Lindsay Anderson are considered his best: This Sporting Life (1963), The White Bus (1967), If ... (1968) and The Successful ( O Lucky Man ! , 1973). For his portrayal of several supporting characters in the latter, Lowe received the Society of Film and Television Arts Award in 1973 .
However, the theater always remained his greatest passion. In 1979 he said in an interview: “ Personally I like to mix all three each year - films, TV and stage. I do a summer season in theater every year. I count it as my holiday, I enjoy it so much. "(" Personally, I like to mix all three together every year - movies, television and stage. I spend the summer at the theater every year. I take that as my vacation, I enjoy it so much. ") Because Joan Lowe is returning had had a hard time getting into acting and she suffered from alcohol addiction for a long time, her husband chose his theater engagements so that his Joan also got a role. He even turned down prestigious roles for this reason.
In addition to his acting activities, Lowe also recorded some singles for the record companies Spiral and Columbia Records . The best-known title of his only moderately successful musician career is the Dad's Army title song Who Do You Think You're Kidding, Mr Hitler?
Last years
1979, now at the age of 64 years, he dubbed the figure of Mr. Beaver in the animated film The King of Narnia ( The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe ) by CS Lewis . In the same year he was with Ian Carmichael and Angela Lansbury in Deadly Embassy ( The Lady Vanishes see). One of his last roles was in the 1982 black comedy Britannia Hospital , again directed by Lindsay Anderson. This and his last appearance as a leading actor in the sitcom AJ Wentworth, BA were only published posthumously.
Lowe had been in poor health and had narcolepsy for several years . On April 14, 1982, at the age of 66, he was last seen live on television as a guest of the midday magazine Pebble Mill at One . He suffered a stroke in the cloakroom of the Alexandra Theater in Birmingham before the play Home at Seven was performed that evening and died in the hospital in the morning hours of the following day.
His ashes were scattered in Area DL1 at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium in Warwickshire. Few people were present at his funeral, even Joan Lowe was in Belfast at the time so as not to miss a performance of Home at Seven . In May 1982, a memorial service was held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London, attended by family, friends and former colleagues.
souvenir
In December 2007, plans for a statue in honor of Arthur Lowe were published. The life-size bronze sculpture showing Lowe in his role as Captain George Mainwaring was unveiled on June 19, 2010 by Dad's Army authors Jimmy Perry and David Croft in Thetford , England . Most of the outdoor scenes in the series were taken there. The image was financed by the local Friends of Dad's Army Museum .
In 1996 Stephen Lowe published a biography about his father Arthur under the title Arthur Lowe - A Life by Nick Hern Books. The paperback edition appeared a year later in allusion to Lowe's most important role under the title Arthur Lowe - Dad's Memory by Virgin Books. A second biography is by Graham Lord and was published by Orion Books in 2002 under the title Arthur Lowe - A Life That Led to Mainwaring .
The half-hour television biography The Unforgettable Arthur Lowe was part of the 2000 series The Unforgettable ... series about famous English comedians.
Awards
Arthur Lowe played three supporting characters (Mr. Duff, Charlie Johnson and Dr. Munda) in director Lindsay Anderson's comedy The Successful ( O Lucky Man! ) And received the British Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Other nominees were Ian Bannen for The Offense ( The Offense ), Michael Lonsdale for The Jackal ( The Day of the Jackal ) and Denholm Elliott for A Doll's House ( A Doll's House ).
Society of Film and Television Arts (later BAFTA Award)
- 1973: Best Supporting Actor ( Best Actor in a Supporting Role ) for the Successful ( O Lucky Man! )
Lowe was nominated six times for a BAFTA TV award between 1969 and 1977, including five times for his role in Dad's Army .
Filmography (selection)
Movies
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TV Shows
- 1954: The Three Musketeers
- 1960-1965: Coronation Street
- 1960–1968: Armchair Theater
- 1965-1966: Pardon the Expression
- 1967: Turn Out the Lights
- 1967: With umbrella, charm and bowler hat ( The Avengers )
- 1968-1977: Dad's Army
- 1971: Doctor at Large
- 1971–1972: The Last of the Baskets
- 1972: It's Murder But Is It Art
- 1974: Microbes and Men
- 1974: David Copperfield
- 1978-1981: Bless Me Father
- 1979-1980: Potter
- 1982: AJ Wentworth, BA
literature
- Stephen Lowe: Arthur Lowe - A Life . Nick Hern Books, 1996, ISBN 1-85459-279-3 .
- Stephen Lowe: Arthur Lowe - Dad's Memory . Virgin Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7535-0170-8 .
- Graham Lord: Arthur Lowe: A Life That Led to Mainwaring . Orion Books Ltd, 2002, ISBN 0-7528-4184-X .
Web links
- Arthur Lowe in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Arthur Lowes biography on screenonline.org.uk
- Arthur Lowes biography on televisionheaven.co.uk
swell
General biography sources
- ↑ John Oliver: Arthur Lowe (Biography). Retrieved August 26, 2010 .
- ^ Obituary for Arthur Lowe. In: this is Announcements. August 6, 2008, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ Laurence Marcus: TV Greats: Arthur Lowe. (No longer available online.) In: Television Heaven. August 22, 2004, archived from the original on October 20, 2010 ; accessed on August 26, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Best Supporting Actor 1973. In: British Academy of Film and Television Arts - Awards Database. Retrieved August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c d Arthur Lowe - Mini Biography. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved August 25, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c d e Bill Wells: Arthur Goes Marching On. In: Weekend Magazine. Retrieved August 26, 2010 (September 16-22, 1970).
- ^ Dulcimer Street (London Belongs to Me). In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved August 25, 2010 .
- ↑ a b Arthur Lowe, cheerful on parade as Mr. Drake the eccentric sleuth. In: Radio Times. Retrieved August 26, 2010 (March 18–24, 1972).
- ↑ a b Derbyshire's Arthur Lowe, aka Captain Mainwaring. March 17, 2010, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ BBC - Britain's Best Sitcoms. March 2004, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ Iain F. McAsh: On Maneuvers With Dad's Army. In: ABC Film Review. January 1971, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ a b Dave Badger: Arthur's idea of a holiday is working! In: ABC Film Review. 1979, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ Arthur Lowe. In: Find a Grave. January 2, 2001, accessed August 25, 2010 .
- ↑ Dad's Army captain statue unveiled in Thetford. June 20, 2010, accessed August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ Arthur Lowe - A Life / Dad's Memory by Stephen Lowe. Retrieved August 26, 2010 .
- ^ Arthur Lowe - A Life That led to Mainwaring by Graham Lord. Retrieved August 26, 2010 .
- ↑ The Unforgettable Arthur Lowe. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved August 25, 2010 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lowe, Arthur |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 22, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hayfield, Derbyshire, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 15, 1982 |
| Place of death | Birmingham , England |