Biography
This page uses content from the Ronnie Barker biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
| Ronnie Barker |
|---|
| |
| Born |
| 25 September 1929 Bedford, Bedfordshire, England |
| Died |
| 3 October 2005 Dean (near Chipping Norton), Oxfordshire, England |
| Occupation |
| Actor, writer, comedian |
| Career milestones |
| The Frost Report (1966) The Two Ronnies (1971-1987, 2004) Porridge (1974-1977) Open All Hours (1976-1985) |
| Website |
| BBC comedy profile |
Beginnings
Barker was born in Bedford in Bedfordshire. He had two sisters and the family moved to Oxford when his father, a clerk for Shell Oil, was relocated, when Barker was four years old. He took to writing plays for his family and neighbours, and often sat in the audience of the Oxford Playhouse, his local repertory company, dreaming of fame. Barker attended Oxford High School and at 16, he left and took a job as a bank clerk - but the theatre called. He wrote to the Aylesbury Repertory Company in 1948 and his show business career began. Barker then went on to join the Playhouse Theatre, at the time under the actor-management of Frank Shelley, as an actor and stagehand, at £2 10s (£2.50) per week. The two appeared together there, in Ben Travers's A Cuckoo in the Nest and, subsequently, in a number of other venues and roles. In 1993, Barker dedicated his autobiography to Shelley, whom he called one of the "three wise men who directed my career; without men like these, there would be no theatre."
Success
He then worked as an actor and assistant stage manager with the Manchester Repertory Company, but was soon spotted by Sir Peter Hall who gave him a West End role. His first radio appearance was in 1956; he went on to play a variety of minor characters in The Navy Lark, a navy based sit-com on the BBC Light Programme (still available on tape and frequently rerun on BBC 7). He later returned to radio in the BBC Radio 4 sketch show Lines From My Grandfather's Forehead. He acted in the films "Father Came Too" and "The Bargee". On television, he wrote and performed many satirical skits in The Frost Report, notably a series of trios which he performed with Ronnie Corbett and John Cleese. He starred with David Jason as a bumbling aristocrat in the sit-com Hark at Barker. Both he and Jason are widely recognised as having excellent comic timing and delivery, which accounts for their enduring popularity. Jason appeared in several episodes of Porridge, and co-starred as Granville, the errand boy and nephew of Barker's stuttering shopkeeper Arkwright in the sitcom Open All Hours, written by Roy Clarke (who also wrote Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances). Both Porridge and Open All Hours originated as part of the Seven of One series.
Porridge ran for three series, two Christmas specials and a film, produced in 1979. Barker privately regarded the series as the finest work of his career. It was followed by the sitcom Going Straight which, while not as popular as Porridge, did win BAFTA awards. The first came at a time when Barker was grieving the early death of his co-star Richard Beckinsale, and Barker tearfully paid tribute to Beckinsale in his brief acceptance speech. The Open All Hours pilot episode was broadcast in March 1973, and ran for four series between February 1976 and October 1985.
Barker was also an accomplished comedy writer. He provided a good deal of the sketches and songs for The Two Ronnies, and contributed material to many other radio and TV shows—often under a variety of assumed names. Most famously, many contributions for The Two Ronnies were submitted by a mystery writer called Gerald Wiley. Wiley had first gained credit for his work on the Frost on Sunday show, but no one had ever met him. His status as a recluse became well known among the comedy writing fraternity, to the extent that it became almost a challenge to discover his identity. Frank Muir and Tom Stoppard were both accused by members of the writing team, including Barry Cryer, before one day, Wiley said that he would reveal himself at a Chinese restaurant. No one believed Barker at first, when he stood up and announced it was him, particularly as he himself had turned away scripts credited to Wiley. Barker admitted that he carried out this deception, because he was afraid that his ideas and scripts would not be judged on merit otherwise. His other credits include the (almost) silent films A Home of Your Own (1964), Futtock's End (1970), The Picnic (1975) and By the Sea (1982), the sit-coms His Lordship Entertains, The Magnificent Evans and Clarence, the plays Rub A Dub Dub and Mum, and the LP A Pint of Old and Filthy. Straight roles were few and far between, though he did put in a dramatic-comic turn as Cheshire in The Hidden Tiger episode of the 1960s classic series The Avengers and as Friar Tuck in Robin and Marian.
Barker made occasional TV appearances after his 1988 retirement, most notably as Winston Churchill's butler—a "straight" role, but with opportunities for comic asides—in the BBC drama The Gathering Storm in 2002. This was followed up by a role in the film My House in Umbria in 2003. In 2004 he was given a special BAFTA award and announced his return to television; he reunited with Ronnie Corbett to record The Two Ronnies Sketchbook, a clip show of their sketches along with newly recorded introductions. These were shown in early 2005. On Wednesday 6th July 2005, another, final special - The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook, was recorded with new introductions featuring clips from their previous Christmas special shows. This was to be his last television appearance, and sadly, he knew this. This led to an early recording of the special. It was shown at Christmas 2005, two months after his death.
He was voted amongst the top 20 greatest comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders in a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian.
News of his death made headlines all over the United Kingdom and in countries with significant populations of migrants from the UK. Ronnie Corbett said that throughout their many years working together there was never a cross word between them. He also commented that Barker was "pure gold in triplicate - as a comedian, writer and friend".
Personal life
Barker married Joy Tubb in 1957 and they had three children: two sons, the actors Adam (b. 1967) and Larry (b. 1960) and one daughter, the actress Charlotte Barker (b. 1963). He retired to Dean, a hamlet near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire to run an antiques shop in 1987. He died in a local hospice from heart failure on Monday 3 October 2005, aged 76, with his wife by his side. His catchphrase ending from The Two Ronnies provided the perfect epitaph: "Goodnight From Him".
He had a private humanist funeral in Banbury, followed by a public memorial service on 3rd March 2006 at Westminster Abbey, at which Richard Briers, David Jason and (from standing on a crate!) Ronnie Corbett read, a recording of Barker's rhyming slang sermon was played, and the choir processed in behind four candles, a reference to the Two Ronnies' most famous sketch. (BBC report)
His life and work was honoured at the British Academy Television Awards in 2006.
References
Further reading
External links
- Profile from the BBC
- BBC Obituary
- [1] Remembering Ronnie barker
- Laughterlog.com Complete list of radio shows, television shows, films, books and records featuring Ronnie Barker.
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