Jon Pertwee

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jon Pertwee (March 1996)

John Devon Roland "Jon" Pertwee (born July 7, 1919 in Chelsea , London , † May 20, 1996 in Timber Lake , Connecticut ) was a British actor .

stage

The second oldest son of the playwright Roland Pertwee , who had adapted the spelling of his surname Perthuis de Laillevault to the English pronunciation, tried himself as an actor after graduating from school in 1936, initially with little success. He took on minor roles at Denham Film Studios and appeared in productions such as A Yank at Oxford and The Just Four (after Edgar Wallace ).

The Central School of Dramatic Arts rejected him as an Eleven, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) he was initially accepted, but expelled from school before the end of a year. Instead he found employment with the Arts League of Service Traveling Theater under the direction of Donald Wolfit and in 1937 joined the ensemble of a small theater in Jersey. In 1939 he found employment in London, a. a. at the Aldwych Theater in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird .

Even in later years he kept coming back on stage. He also played in musicals such as Irene (1976-77) and as Jacob Marley in Scrooge - The Musical (1992/92). In the last year of his life he took part in two different stage programs - one of which was his one-man show Who is Jon Pertwee? on tour.

radio

While at the Aldwych Theater , Pertwee met fellow actor John Salew , who was a popular performer on the radio at the time. When Salew was unable to meet an obligation at his radio station because of an engagement, he handed this order over to Pertwee. With that began his radio career. Pertwee quickly became known for the versatility of his voice.

After a break in his work during the Second World War, he continued his radio successes again in 1946 and played a variety of comic characters in Eric Barker's Mediterranean Merry-Go-Round , using his ability to imitate a wide variety of dialects successfully.

The second World War

After the beginning of the Second World War in Europe, he signed up for the Royal Navy as a radio operator. At the last second he escaped a mission on the HMS Hood by being delegated to an officers' course. Most of the Hood's crew did not survive the mission. Pertwee sustained serious head injuries in the Portsmouth bombing. As a result, he was transferred to the Isle of Man for convalescence , where he put together a small amateur drama group.

watch TV

Due to his popularity as a radio comedian, he also got more film and television offers from the 1950s. For the BBC he starred in the comedy series The Navy Lark for 18 years . He also made guest appearances in other television series such as The Goodies .

Doctor Who

In 1970 he got the role with which he is most closely associated in England to this day: In succession to Patrick Troughton , he played the extraterrestrial "Doctor" until 1974, who appeared in various forms in the long-lived science fiction series Doctor Who and times against dark forces like the Daleks . Until his death, Pertwee was a guest at various science fiction conventions, television specials, radio and television talk shows and other public appearances due to this representation. Even on the theater stage, he slipped into the role of doctor again in 1989 for the production Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure . In the last years of his life he took over the role again for the radio ( The Paradise of Death , 1993 and The Ghosts of N-Space , 1996).

Worzel Gummidge

Another television series with Pertwee in the leading role also achieved a high level of awareness and popularity: in 1979 he first played the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge for a television film based on the children's books by Barbara Euphan Todd , who regularly comes to life and experiences bizarre adventures. Although the production was not very successful, the writing duo Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse tried an adaptation for a television series that eventually found a prospect with Southern Television . The wayward scarecrow became so popular that it was even voted TV Personality of the Year by the Variety Club in 1981 . As a result of production difficulties, the series was canceled and Pertwee turned back to the theater.

Movie

He played his first major role in 1953 in the comedy Will Any Gentleman? . Numerous appearances followed, mostly in comedies such as the Disney production Who Stole Our Dinosaur? and three films from the Is-Yes-crazy series of films ( It's crazy - the brazen cowboy , It's crazy - Alarm in the horror castle and It's crazy - Caesar loves Cleopatra ). In the latter, he parodied the soothsayer from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar , who foresaw the Ides of March, with tangled floor-length hair and rolling eyes .

Others

Pertwee also worked temporarily as a cabaret artist and guitarist. In the 1970s he hosted the quiz show Whodunnit? For Thames TV . and in 1995 he took on some speaking roles for the computer game Discworld based on the novels by Terry Pratchett .

Pertwee's first marriage was to actress Jean Marsh , 15 years his junior , who played Sara Kingdom in Doctor Who, the companion of the first doctor. Did you find yourself filming Will Any Gentleman? met. The marriage ended in divorce in 1960. In the same year his second marriage to the fashion designer Ingeborg Rhoesha followed. He died of a heart attack at the age of 76 while on vacation in the United States.

Jon Pertwee's brother Bill was a successful actor and writer, and his son Sean is a busy actor.

Mark Gatiss ' The Zero Imperative from the PROBE film series is the last film in which Jon Pertwee starred.

Filmography (selection)

Remarks

  1. ↑ David Howe, "A doctor for all time," in: Guardian, May 21, 1996.
  2. ↑ Mike Haberfelner: An Interview with Bill Baggs of BBV . In: Search my Trash . July 30, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2016.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pertwee, Jon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pertwee, John Devon Roland
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Chelsea , England
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1996
Place of death Timber Lake , Connecticut