Harry Fowler

Harry Fowler
MBE
Harry Fowler; MBE
Born	Henry James Fowler; 10 December 1926; Lambeth, London, England
Died	4 January 2012 (aged 85)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1942–2004
Spouses	Joan Dowling (m. 1951; died 1954); Catherine Palmer (m. 1960);

Henry James Fowler, MBE (10 December 1926 – 4 January 2012) was an English character actor in film and television. Over a career lasting more than six decades, he made nearly 200 appearances on screen.^[1]

Personal life

Fowler was born in Lambeth, south London, on 10 December 1926. As a "near illiterate newspaper boy" making eight shillings a week, he told film historian Brian McFarlane, he was invited on to radio to speak about his life in wartime London.^[2]

In 1951, Fowler married actress Joan Dowling, who died by suicide in 1954. In 1960, he married Catherine Palmer.^[3]

Fowler died on 4 January 2012. He was survived by his wife and had no children.^[2]^[3]

Career

Fowler's radio interview about his experiences in wartime London led to an invitation to a screen test at Elstree Studios and a film debut as Ern in the 1942 film Those Kids from Town, a propaganda piece about wartime evacuee children from London (co-starring alongside fellow debutant George Cole). His fee was 2 guineas (42 shillings) a day - a fortune compared to the 8 shillings a week he had been earning as a newspaper boy up to his audition.^[2]

His early juvenile roles included Hue and Cry (1947), usually considered the first of the Ealing comedies. Fowler later married Joan Dowling, one of his co-stars in the Ealing film. Dowling committed suicide in 1954, aged 26.^[4]

During the Second World War, he served as an aircraftman in the Royal Air Force and played a cheerful cockney character with the same job in the films Angels One Five (1952),^[5] and Conflict of Wings (1954), a portrayal he used in other contexts, often with a humorous slant, mostly especially during his year in The Army Game (1959–60) TV series.

He played Harry Danvers in the clerical comedy Our Man at St. Mark's (1965–66) opposite Donald Sinden^[6] and made several appearances on children's television during the 1970s, reading on Jackanory and hosting the series Get This and Going a Bundle with Kenny Lynch.^[4] Fowler also made several appearances in the consumer affairs sections of the Eamonn Andrews Show on ABC TV in the late 1960s. He is also noted for having narrated Bob Godfrey Films' Great: Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1975), the first British cartoon to win an Academy Award.^[7] His familiar voice was regularly used for TV commercials.

In 1975, Fowler took the part of Eric Lee Fung, described as "a Chinese cockney spiv", in The Melting Pot, a sitcom written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand. The series was cancelled by the BBC after the first episode had been broadcast.^[8]

He was awarded an MBE in 1970, as part of Harold Wilson's Resignation Honours.^[9]

In his book British Film Character Actors (1982), Terence Pettigrew wrote that Fowler 'was as English as suet pudding...his characters were neither honest nor irretrievably delinquent, merely wise in the ways of the streets, surviving through a combination of wit and stealth. He had a certain arrogance, but there was an appealing vulnerability, too.'

Selected filmography

Those Kids from Town (1942) – Ern
Salute John Citizen (1942) – Office Boy (uncredited)
Went the Day Well? (1942) – Young George
Get Cracking (1943) – (uncredited)
The Demi-Paradise (1943) – Small Boy (An Evacuee) (uncredited)
Bell-Bottom George (1944) – Boy on Bicycle (uncredited)
Champagne Charlie (1944) – 'Orace
Give Us the Moon (1944) – Bellboy (uncredited)
Don't Take It to Heart (1944) – Telegraph Boy
Painted Boats (1945) – His Brother Alf
Hue and Cry (1947) – Joe Kirby
Trouble in the Air (1948) – (uncredited)
A Piece of Cake (1948) – Head Spiv
For Them That Trespass (1949) – Dave, Rosie's friend
Now Barabbas (1949) – Smith
Landfall (1949) – RAF Corporal Orderly (uncredited)
Dance Hall (1950) – Amorous Youth (uncredited)
Once a Sinner (1950) – Bill James
Trio (1950) – Undetermined Secondary Role (uncredited)
She Shall Have Murder (1950) – Albert Oates
The Dark Man (1951) – 1st Reporter
Mister Drake's Duck (1951) – Corporal
Scarlet Thread (1951) – Sam
There Is Another Sun (1951) – Young Rider
Madame Louise (1951) – Trout's Clerk
High Treason (1951) – Street Photographer (uncredited)
The Promise (1952)
The Last Page (1952) – Joe
13 East Street (1952) – (uncredited)
I Believe in You (1952) – Hooker
Angels One Five (1952) – Airman
The Pickwick Papers (1952) – Sam Weller
Top of the Form (1953) – Albert
A Day to Remember (1953) – Stan Harvey
Don't Blame the Stork (1954) – Harry Fenn
Conflict of Wings (1954) – Leading Aircraftman 'Buster'
Up to His Neck (1954) – Smudge
Stock Car (1955) – Monty Albright
The Blue Peter (1955) – Charlie Barton
Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956) – Sydney Stanhope
Behind the Headlines (1956) – Alfie
Home and Away (1956) – Syd Jarvis
Town on Trial (1957) – Leslie (Bandleader)
West of Suez (1957) – Tommy
Booby Trap (1957) – Sammy
Lucky Jim (1957) – Cab Driver (uncredited)
The Birthday Present (1957) – Charlie
The Supreme Secret (1958) – Bluey
Soapbox Derby (1958) – Barrow Boy
The Diplomatic Corpse (1958) – Knocker Parsons
I Was Monty's Double (1958) – Civilian (End Scene)
Idol on Parade (1959) – Ron
The Heart of a Man (1959) – Razor
The Dawn Killer (1959) – Bert Iron
Don't Panic Chaps! (1959) – Ackroyd
Crooks Anonymous (1962) – Woods
Flight from Singapore (1962) – Sgt. Brooks
The Longest Day (1962) – British Paratrooper (uncredited)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – William Potter (uncredited)
Tomorrow at Ten (1962) – Smiley
Ladies Who Do (1963) – Drill Operator
Seventy Deadly Pills (1964) – Covent Garden porter
Father Came Too! (1964)
Clash by Night (1964) – Doug Roberts
The Nanny (1965) – Milkman
Life at the Top (1965) – Magic Beans Man
Doctor in Clover (1966) – Grafton
Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966) – Harry
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) – Marcel
Crossed Swords (1977) – Nipper
High Rise Donkey (1980) – Crook
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980) – Buller Bullethead
George and Mildred (1980) – Fisher
Fanny Hill (1983) – Beggar (uncredited)
Body Contact (1987) – Herbert
Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990) – Morry

Selected TV appearances

Dial 999 (TV series) (1959) - ('Barge Burglars', episode) - Sandy Gordon
The Army Game (1959–1960) – Cpl. 'Flogger' Hoskins
Gideons Way (1964)
Dixon of Dock Green (1963–1970) – Duncan / Billy Reynolds / Alf Stubbings / Handbag Wilson
Z-Cars (1963–1972) – Billy Carrick / Tony / Toff
Jackanory (1969–1971) – Storyteller
Crown Court (1973) – George Curl.
Going A Bundle (1976) – Himself
Minder (1982) – Monty Wiseman
In Sickness and in Health (1985–1992) – Harry / Milkman
Casualty (1986–1992) – George / Terry
Super Gran (1987) – Sid Scoundrel
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (1988)^[10] – Harry
The Bill (1989–1992) – Alfred Sheldon / Pat Fitzgerald
The Impressionable Jon Culshaw (2004) – Customer (final appearance)