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Edward Chapman (13 October 1901 - 9 August 1977) was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. Wilfred Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.
Chapman was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. On leaving school he became a bank clerk but later began his stage career with Ben Greet's Company in June 1924 at the Repertory Theatre, Nottingham, playing Gecko in George du Maurier's Trilby. He made his first London stage appearance at the Court Theatre in August 1925 playing the Rev Septimus Tudor in The Farmer's Wife. Among dozens of stage roles that followed, he played Bonaparte to Margaret Rawlings's Josephine in Napoleon at the Embassy Theatre in September 1934. In 1928 he attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who gave him the role of "The Paycock" in the 1930 film, Juno and the Paycock. In the same year he also made an appearance in Caste (of which no prints are known to exist). He had a role in The Citadel in 1938 and appeared alongside George Formby in the Ealing Studios comedy Turned Out Nice Again in 1941.
During the Second World War he took a break from acting and joined the Royal Air Force. After training he was posted to 129 (Mysore) Squadron as an intelligence officer. This Spitfire squadron was based at Westhampnett and Debden. The squadron was heavily engaged in combat during this period and many of Chapman's fellow squadron mates were killed in action.
Chapman first starred alongside Wisdom in 1957's Just My Luck in the role of Mr. Stoneway, but the next year in The Square Peg he appeared as Mr. Grimsdale for the first time opposite Wisdom's character of Norman Pitkin. In 1960 he and Wisdom acted together again in The Bulldog Breed, playing the roles of Mr. Philpots and Norman Puckle - Mr. Grimsdale and Pitkin in all but name. Wisdom appeared alone as Norman Pitkin in On the Beat in 1962, while Chapman branched out, starring in the Danish folktale Venus fra Vestø, but Grimsdale and Pitkin were reunited for 1963's A Stitch in Time. Their final performance together was in The Early Bird in 1965, Wisdom's first film in colour. In all, he appeared alongside Norman Wisdom in five films.
After Sir John Gielgud was arrested for "persistently importuning male persons for immoral purposes", Chapman started a petition to force him to resign from Equity. Sir Laurence Olivier reportedly threw Chapman out of his dressing room when he solicited his signature for the petition.
From 1965 Chapman played mostly characters roles on television. His final role was as Mr. Callon for nine episodes of the BBC's seafaring melodrama The Onedin Line between 1971 and 1972. Chapman died of a heart attack in Brighton, East Sussex, England at the age of 75.
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Henry Wilcoxon was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and best known as a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Abraham Sofaer (October 1, 1896 – January 21, 1988) was a stage actor of Burmese-Jewish descent who became a familiar supporting player on film and television in his later years. He was born in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). Sofaer's strong features and resonant voice complemented the many exotic character parts he played. He began his acting career on the London stage in 1921, but soon was alternating between London and Broadway. By the 1930s, he was appearing in both British and American films. Among his more prominent performances were the dual role of the Judge and Surgeon in Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and St. Paul in Quo Vadis (1951). He also appeared on television from its earliest days in the late 1930s and on radio. Although his film appearances diminished after the 1950s, he continued to have guest roles on dozens of major U.S. television series throughout the 1960s, including Star Trek ("Charlie X"), The Twilight Zone ("The Mighty Casey"), Lost in Space ("The Flaming Planet") and The Outer Limits ("Demon with a Glass Hand"), until retiring in the mid 1970s. He may be best-remembered for his recurring role as Hadji, the master of all genies, on I Dream of Jeannie. Sofaer married Psyche Angela Christian, with whom he had two sons and four daughters. He died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, as the result of congestive heart failure in 1988. The noted jurist of the same name is the son of one of the actor's cousins.
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