Jimmy Edwards

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For other people also known as Jimmy Edwards, see James Edwards.

Jimmy Edwards
Born	James Keith O'Neill March 23, 1920(1920-03-23) Barnes, London
Died	July 7, 1988 (aged 68) London
Occupation	Comedy actor
Spouse(s)	Valerie

Jimmy Edwards DFC (23 March 1920 – 7 July 1988) was an English radio and television comedy actor, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!.

Edwards was born James Keith O'Neill in Barnes, London, the son of a professor of mathematics . He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral Choir School, at King's College School in Wimbledon, London, and later at St John's College, Cambridge.

He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in injuries requiring plastic surgery — he disguised the traces with the huge handlebar moustache that later became his trademark. He was a member of the Guinea Pig Club.

[edit] Career

Edwards was a feature of London theatre in the immediate post-war years, debuting at London's Windmill Theatre in 1946 and on BBC radio the same year. He later did a season with Tony Hancock, having previously performed in the Cambridge Footlights review. He gained wider exposure as a radio performer in Take It From Here, co-starring Dick Bentley, which first paired his writer Frank Muir with Bentley's: Denis Norden. Also on radio he appeared in My Wildest Dream. Graduating to television, he appeared in Whack-O, also written by Muir and Norden, and the panel game Does the Team Think? a radio show which Edwards created. In 1959 a film version of Whack-O called 'Bottoms Up!' was made, written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. On TV he also appeared in Six Faces of Jim, in guest slots in Make Room for Daddy and Sykes, in Bold As Brass, I Object, John Jorrocks Esq, The Auction Game, Joker's Wild, Sir Yellow, Doctor in the House, Charley's Aunt and Oh! Sir James! (which he wrote).

In April 1966, Edwards performed at the last night of the Melbourne Tivoli theatre. His final words closed a long tradition of Australian music hall. "I don't relish the distinction of being the man who closed the Tiv. Music hall's dead in Britain. Now this one's dead, there's nowhere to go. I'll either become a character comedian or a pauper."^[1]

Edwards also starred in The Fossett Saga in 1969 as James Fossett, an ambitious writer of Victorian "Penny Dreadfuls", with Sam Kydd playing Herbert Quince, his unpaid manservant, and June Whitfield playing music hall singer Millie Goswick. This was shown on Fridays at 8:30 pm on LWT. (David Freeman was the creator.)

Edwards also worked with Eric Sykes, acting in the short films that Sykes wrote, The Plank (1967) (alongside Tommy Cooper); in the remake of the The Plank (1979), alongside Arthur Lowe); and in Rhubarb (1969) (which also featured Eric Sykes. Edwards and Sykes also toured in their theatrical farce Big Bad Mouse, which while keeping more or less to a script, gave them rein to ad lib, address the audience, and so forth. Also the revival of Maid of the Mountains.

[edit] Private life

Jimmy Edwards published his autobiography, Six of the Best, in 1984, as a follow-up to Take it From Me. Among his interests were brass bands, and the Handlebar Club, in which all the members had such moustaches. Edwards was a lifelong Conservative and in the 1964 general election stood as a candidate in Paddington North, without success. He was a devotee of fox hunting at Rottingdean, near Brighton. A Brighton and Hove bus is named after him. He had been married to Valerie but during the 1970s said he was homosexual, and then found TV work harder to find in more homophobic times. He lived in Fletching, Sussex, and died in London in 1988.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Jimmy Edwards at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Comedy Guide - Jimmy Edwards

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