Arthur Mullard
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Arthur Mullard (19 September 1912–11 December 1995) was an English comedy actor.
From a humble background, he was born in Islington, and started work at 14 as a butcher's assistant, and went on to join the Army at 18. It was during his time in the army that he began boxing, and duly became the champion boxer of his regiment. When he eventually left the Army he did actually have a short stint at boxing professionally.
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945 the burly ex-boxer sought out work as a stuntman at the Pinewood and Ealing film studios, from which he drifted into uncredited bit-parts in classic British films such as Oliver Twist, The Ladykillers, The Belles of St. Trinians and The Lavender Hill Mob.
Mullard's distinctive "ugly mug" appearance and particular variety of cockney accent lent itself to a certain character and pretty soon he graduated to more visible roles in comedy films and on television. It was on television where Arthur Mullard truly made a name for himself, firstly as a straight man for the likes of Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Benny Hill, and he starred in The Arthur Askey Show. It was the London Weekend Television series Romany Jones, first aired in 1973, which was to prove Mullard's big break, playing the part of Wally Briggs, a crafty caravan-dwelling character.
So popular was Mullard's character in Romany Jones that a spin-off series - Yus, My Dear - was created in 1976, where Wally and his wife Lily(Queenie Watts) had moved out of their caravan into a council house. The series introduced a new character, Wally's brother Benny, the first acting role for future EastEnders and Snatch star Mike Reid. Yus, My Dear was a smash hit and Arthur (or "Arfur" as he was widely known) was regularly seen as a guest star in other programmes and even in television commercials.
Such was Mullard-mania in the late seventies that the man even graced the pop charts in 1978 with his own rendition of "You're The One That I Want" (originally from the movie Grease) in a duet with Hylda Baker (who was also in her sixties). It might have been an even bigger hit, but a live appearance by the two veteran comic performers on the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops was such a disaster (Mullard and Baker fluffed the lyrics and seemed utterly confused as to what was happening) that record sales plummeted spectacularly after the broadcast.
The hit single was to be the last great success of Mullard's life, and following an uncredited narration on the Glenn Close- led live action 101 Dalmatians (which screened in 1996) he died in his sleep on December 11, 1995.
In a newspaper interview after his death, Arthur Mullard's daughter, Barbara, claimed that he had sexually abused her for years and had driven her mother to commit suicide [1]. His friends, she said "weren't surprised".
