Tom Walls

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Tom Kirby Walls (18 February 1883 - 27 November 1949) was a popular English stage and motion-pictures character actor, and film director. He has claim to be one of the most influential figures in British comedy.

[edit] Early career

A native of Northampton, Walls was the son of a plumber. After leaving school, he spent a year in Canada and joined the police on his return. After these false starts, he settled on a stage career in 1905. Over the next few years he worked steadily, appearing in the West End as well as touring Britain, Australia and North America. By 1912 he was firmly established as a West End star.

By the 1920s, Walls established a long association with London's Aldwych Theatre, where he produced, directed and starred in a string of popular farces written by Ben Travers, and featuring an ensemble cast including Ralph Lynn, Robertson Hare and Yvonne Arnaud. Walls functioned as both star and director in the first Aldwych-produced farce transferred to the cinema; box-office success Rookery Nook. In 1922, together with Leslie Henson, Walls co-produced and starred in the farce Tons of Money at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Their next project was It Pays to Advertise. They moved to the Aldwych Theatre for this one and thus inaugurated the Aldwych Farce series of comedies. With its regular team of Henson, Walls, Mary Brough, Ralph Lynn, Robertson Hare, Yvonne Arnaud, Winifred Shotter and others, and its usual writer Ben Travers, the series developed a strain of British comedy which featured silly-asses, henpecked husbands, battleaxe mothers-in-law and lots of innocent misunderstandings.

[edit] Later career

He made an early foray into the silver screen in 1924 in the film version of Tons of Money, though he didn't reprise his role. He directed his final film towards the end of the 1930’s, Old Iron, but prolonged his film career after the farces had ceased by appearing as a character actor in other director’s films throughout the 1940’s. When the talkies arrived, Walls moved his focus away from the theatre and to the movies. He directed seventeen films between 1930 and 1938, acting in most of them. His career waned following the decade, but he was still seen in a number of films, both comedies and dramatic, until his death. Wall’s final film was 1949's The Interrupted Journey.