Roland Pertwee
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Roland Pertwee (May 17, 1885 - April 26, 1963) was an English playwright, film and television screenwriter, director and actor. He is perhaps best remembered as the father of both Doctor Who star Jon Pertwee and fellow playwright and screenwriter Michael Pertwee. He is also the uncle of actor Bill Pertwee and the grandfather of actors Sean Pertwee and Dariel Pertwee.
Following the end of the First World War in 1918, he retired from the British Army and began to pursue a career in the burgeoning British film industry. From the 1910s to 1950s, he worked as a writer on many British films, generally providing either the basic story or full screenplay. He was one of numerous writers working on the script of A Yank at Oxford starring Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh, the film in which his son Jon made his screen debut, and on Caravan.
While he seemingly preferred writing, he acted in ten films between 1915 and 1945 and directed Breach of Promise, which he also wrote.
His play Heatwave, written in collaboration with Denise Robins, was produced at the St James's Theatre, London, in 1929.[1]
In 1954, he and his elder son Michael created The Grove Family - generally regarded as being the first soap opera on British television - for the BBC. Having previously written an episode of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents, this marked Pertwee's second and final foray into television writing. Like many BBC television productions of the era, it was broadcast live. At its height, the series had drawn in almost a quarter of British people who owned a television. Reportedly, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother was a great fan. A film version, entitled It's a Great Day, was produced in 1955, likewise written by the Pertwees.
Following the cancellation of The Grove Family in 1957, Pertwee retired from writing. He died in April 1963, three weeks shy of his 78th birthday.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Robins, Denise, Stranger Than Fiction (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1965, autobiography)
