This Is Your Life: Norman Wisdom 1

Norman WISDOM (1915-2010)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Norman Wisdom, comedian and actor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while being interviewed for the BBC television programme Tonight at the Playhouse Theatre in Manchester, from where the programme was then broadcast.

Norman, who was born in London, spent time in the Merchant Navy before enlisting in the British Army with the 10th Royal Hussars. In 1930 he was posted to India, where he became the army's flyweight boxing champion and where, as a bandsman, he first learnt to play various musical instruments. He developed his skills as a performer by entertaining his colleagues in concert parties while serving with the Royal Corps of Signals during the Second World War.

After the war, Norman entered show business full-time and made his professional debut at the Collins Music Hall, London, in October 1945. He toured the country in pantomime and revue, displaying his skill for physical comedy and developing his character of the Gump - in his ill-fitting suit and cloth cap. By the late 1940s, he was starring in London's West End and would later secure a film contract with the Rank Organisation, who cast him in a string of highly successful low-budget comedies, which began with Trouble in Store in 1953.

Norman Wisdom was a subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions - surprised again by Eamonn Andrews in February 1987 at St Margaret's Tavern in Twickenham.

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