Alfred Marks
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| Alfred Marks | |
| Born | Alfred Edward Marks 28 January 1921 Holborn, London |
|---|---|
| Died | 1 July 1996 (aged 75) |
| Occupation | actor and comedian |
Alfred Edward Marks OBE (28 January 1921 - 1 July 1996) was a comic actor and comedian.
Marks was born in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged concerts for servicemen. He also worked as an auctioneer and engineer. He started in variety at the Kilburn Empire in 1946, and his stage appearances included The Sunshine Boys and Fiddler On The Roof. He was also involved in comedy work with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe which later led to the formation (along with writer Spike Milligan) of The Goon Show, though Marks himself was not to become a member of that comedy group [1]
Films included The Frightened City and Scream and Scream Again.
His Television show Alfred Marks Time ran for 6 years on ITV. He compered Sunday Night at the London Palladium and appeared in numerous other television programmes including Albert and Victoria, The Good Old Days, Blankety Blank, Maybury, The Marti Caine Show, The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game, Lovejoy, Parkinson and The All New Alexei Sayle Show.
Marks was honoured to be appointed the second King of Moomba (1968) by the Melbourne Moomba festival committee; when asked what his qualifications were, he quipped (in full Cockney):
- When I was eleven there were rival gangs around a fruit market in the East End. And desperately, I always wanted to be a member of the bigger rival gang. One day when I was in my best Easter suit, someone from one of the other gangs said to me 'would you like to be King of the Golden Apples?' 'All right, just sit there on this box and call out Apples, Apples, give me the Golden Apples.' Which innocently I did and they cobbled me with every rotten apple in the market.[2]
He was married to the actress Paddie O'Neil.
[edit] References
- ^ N. Farnes (ed.) (1997) The Goons: The Story. London: Virgin Publishing.
- ^ Craig Bellamy, Gordon Chisholm & Hilary Ericksen (2006) Moomba - A festival for the people: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/rsrc/PDFs/Moomba/History%20of%20Moomba.pdf PDF p18
