Sidney James

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Sid James (born May 8, 1913 in Hillbrow , Johannesburg , † April 26, 1976 in Sunderland ; actually Solomon Joel Cohen ) was a South African - English actor .

Life

Sid James played roles on stage as a teenager . Both parents were also employed in the theater. However, he did not become an actor at first, but worked as a hairdresser in his native South Africa and only occasionally took on appearances as a singer and actor. During the Second World War he worked in a number of theater productions as part of troop support .

In 1946 he moved to England . There he made acting a profession. In 1947 he made his film debut in the production of Night Beat . From 1954, James was a member of Tony Hancock's comedian troupe for five years in his popular radio show Hancock's Half Hour and the subsequent television series.

In 1959, Hancock fell out with James because he saw his increasing popularity as undesirable competition and released him from production. The following year, James received a role in the British comedy Watch Your Stern , directed by Gerald Thomas .

Thomas and the producer Peter Rogers had started a series of films in 1958, the titles of which began with Carry on . Since the main actor of the third and up to this point the newest film, Ted Ray , was unable to contract, they hired James for the lead role of the fourth Carry on ... film, It's crazy - These tight cops . Sidney James played a good-natured and initially unlucky police officer who had to deal with police students. In addition to director Thomas and producer Rogers, he already knew a large part of the cast and production staff such as cameraman Alan Hume , film composer Bruce Montgomery and the actors Hattie Jacques , Kenneth Connor , Joan Sims and Leslie Phillips from working on Watch your Stern .

With Carry on Constable , James quickly became a fixture in the Carry on ... productions and next to Kenneth Williams , with whom he shared a lifelong mutual antipathy, the highest paid actor in the series. In a total of 19 (of 30) films in the series, he mostly played leading roles, often down-to-earth and good-natured characters with farmer's cunning and a pinch of self-irony . In the following years, James became one of the most popular comedians in Great Britain, especially due to his somewhat coarse humor and his characteristic laugh.

In addition to his carry on ... roles, the multifaceted James also played in the artist drama Trapez (with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis ), alongside Charlie Chaplin in his melancholy comedy A King in New York , in the science fiction shocker enemies from nowhere , alongside Alec Guinness , Stanley Holloway and Audrey Hepburn in the rogue comedy The Luck came overnight and in the spy comedy The Iron Petticoat alongside Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn and was the star of several television series, u. a. Taxi and Bless this House .

James, who had already suffered a heart attack in 1967 - which is why he had to be replaced by Phil Silvers at short notice in Is Yes - In the Desert No Water Flows -, in addition to his numerous film and television productions, also returned to the stage again and again. On the evening of April 26, 1976, he was starring in the premiere of The Mating Game at the Empire Theater in Sunderland, County Durham , when he suffered his second heart attack. Despite immediate medical care, he died on the way to hospital at the age of only 62. He was in the Golders Green Crematorium in London cremated , where his ashes is located.

Sid James was married three times and had an affair with his carry-on colleague Barbara Windsor for several years . This liaison became the TV movie Cor Blimey! In 2000 . in which Geoffrey Hutchings played Sid James. In the TV movie Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! , the autobiography of Kenneth Williams, it is played by Ged McKenna .

In the German dubbed versions of his films he is often spoken by Edgar Ott and Friedrich W. Bauschulte .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME James, Sidney
ALTERNATIVE NAMES James, Sid; Cohen, Solomon Joel (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African actor
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Hillbrow , Johannesburg
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1976
Place of death Sunderland