Who Was Wilfrid Brambell?

I am almost through the entire series of Steptoe & Son. It's brilliant - especially the acting of Wilfrid Brambell. Oddly enough, for a show that was on for many seasons and watched by millions of viewers, I am not finding a lot about him online besides a page on Wikipedia and one very short clip of an interview on YouTube. I am also aware that he played Macca's Dad in A Hard Day's Night. I've read a few unflattering articles about him online as well.

I'd like to learn more about him, especially from forum members in the UK. Is he remembered fondly today? Does anyone have any accurate articles or (especially) interviews? Thanks!

 

Zappa said he was signed on to be 'the bass player' in "2oo Motels", and if you've ever heard the dialogue, you can just picture the man saying those lines...
Frank said, 'He 'freaked out' and left the set, and never came back'......
I still wonder if anybody got the real story about what happened.

 

Great British character actor. Literally in a ton of stuff. Was involved in some sexual acts that included the law. Him and Harry H Corbet did not get along and just had a professional relationship.

 

He played Paul's very clean Grandfather, not his father.
I seem to remember he was arrested for lewd conduct or something similar at one point. I can't remember the details.

 

Guess he wasn’t so clean after all.

 

I’m not so sure about the two not getting along...

Interview with Susannah Corbett: Writing Steptoe and Son's Harry H Corbett's biography

 

This is quite rare but it may give you more information...



There's also this:
Old Never Stop! The Wilfrid Brambell Story: An unofficial telling of Wilfrid Brambell's life story

 

Your link won't open, but I found it here
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Stop-Wilfrid-Brambell-Story-ebook/dp/B01LZ3ITYF?

Thanks!

 

One review about the book 'All Above Board'...

 

He was only 52 when in AHDN

 

I only really remember him for being in Steptoe & Son, and then later on when I saw he was in AHDN.

The famous catchphrases of Steptoe were when son Harold called him a "dirty old man" or him calling Harold "Haaaraaaawld".

 

I'm freakin' 53!....I understand the lack of nutritional care during the war, and all that...but, he REALLY looked old!

 

I remember he turned up late in life in one of the Terence Davies films.

Lots about him on IMDB: Wilfrid Brambell - IMDb

 

The BBC did a biopic of Harry H. Corbett and Wilfred Brambell during the Steptoe and Son years. I remember watching it at the time, but it turns out it was inaccurate, and led to dismissals in the BBC drama department. 21 in all! Worth reading the Wikipedia entry about it.

The Curse of Steptoe - Wikipedia

 

Which is why he was constantly referred to being "clean' in AHDN.

 

Here's a brief contemporary review of Brambell's book from The Stage and Television Today's Sidney Vauncez (April 1976):
"Brambell was all of two-and-a-half when he made his debut in Dublin as a song-and-dance turn in a troop concert during World War I. After early troubles, he became an actor, a very good classical one indeed with Abbey Theatre experience and worked happily and continuously - if not wild successfully - in all the media until Steptoe catapulted him into the Big Time. Yet despite all of his current fame, he's not in the slightest bit conceited as this warm and vital autobiography demonstrates. He emerges as a down-to-earth human being and every page of his book underlines his quintessential humor, humility and sound common sense."

Following his success in A Hard Day's Night and after some sparring with the producers of Steptoe and Son, Brambell appeared in a Broadway musical called Kelly as the family patriarch. For this he earned a one sentence review from Hobe Morrison in Variety who wrote, "Wilfred Brambell, a droll character actor from Dublin by way of London, is diverting as Kelly's loyal father."

Every review I found panned Kelly harshly. The show closed in New York after a single performance. Howard Taubman reviewing in the New York Times noted that, "Wilfred Brambell, a pixieish Irishman with a darlin' brogue, almost breathes animation into Kelly's father." Bramwell's theatrical agent, Joan Redden, showed up a day too late to see him in his lone American stage role. Kelly had pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia and Boston. A reviewer in Massachusetts noted that Brambell and cast-mate Jesse White, "Are talented veterans who earn their keep."


New York Daily News

 

Thank you for your contribution to this thread

 

Yeah, when I saw AHDN (in the 1990s) I didn't twig what that reference was, despite having been a fan of the Steptoe series. Doh.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

I was a nipper in the 60s and ‘Steptoe & Son’ was a weekly treat.
In the way that only children see things, for years I just thought the old man was like that in real life .

 

Wiki says "Brambell was a gay man at a time when it was near impossible to be openly LGBT, not least because male homosexual acts were illegal in England and Wales until 1967. In 1962, he was arrested in a toilet in Shepherd's Bush for persistently importuning and given a conditional discharge."
Wilfrid Brambell - Wikipedia

 

It's the name.

Is it a coincidence that Wilfrid Brambell and Wilford Brimley both notoriously looked much older than their given ages by the time they were 50?

I think not!

 

Also when Harold said "Yuu rrr dizzGUSTing!".

 

Steptoe is one of THE great sitcoms.

 

Apparently he was according to some.......