Who is Arthur Mullard
Arthur Ernest Mullard (
19 September 1910 –
11 December 1995) was an
English actor and singer.
Mullard was born in a humble background in
Islington, London. He started work at the age of 14 as a butcher's assistant, and joined the
Army at 18. It was there that he began boxing, becoming champion of his regiment. When he left the army after three years, he had a short stint at boxing professionally. This ended after 20 fights over three years, following a knock-out from which he lost his memory.
Following the end of the
Second World War in
1945, Mullard sought work as a stuntman at
Pinewood and
Ealing film studios, from which he drifted into uncredited bit-parts in
British films such as
Oliver Twist (1948),
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and
The Ladykillers (
1955).
Mullard's face and cockney accent lent itself to a certain character, and he graduated to more visible roles in comedy films and on television. It was on television that Mullard made a name for himself, first as a straight man for
Tony Hancock,
Frankie Howerd and
Benny Hill, then in
The Arthur Askey Show. It was the
London Weekend Television series
Romany Jones, first aired in
1973, which give Mullard his highest profile, playing
Wally Briggs, a crafty caravan-dweller.
So popular was Mullard's character that a sequel,
Yus, My Dear, was broadcast in
1976, in which Wally and his wife
Lily (
Queenie Watts) had moved out of their caravan into a council house. The series gained modest ratings, though it later gained a reputation as one of the worst sitcoms ever made.
Mullard (or "Arfur" as he was widely known) was regularly a guest in other programmes and television commercials. He and
Watts also appeared as a married couple in the film
Holiday on the Buses (1973), the last feature-length version of the popular
On the Buses comedy series of the time.
Mullard also appeared in
Ladies Who Do (
1963),
Morgan! (1966), The
Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966),
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (
1968), and
Adventures of a
Plumber's Mate (1978). In
1986, invited by producer
Victor Lewis-Smith, Mullard hosted an edition of
Midweek on
BBC Radio 4 to replace regular host
Libby Purves during her temporary absence; the resulting programme was a unique hour of radio.
In
1967, Mullard recorded "
I Love You,
You Love Me"/"
Was It Something I Said" on the
Masquerade label. This was followed the same year by an
album Arthur Mullard of
London.
The LP included Mullard's cover of the
Beatles' "
Yesterday", jokes and philosophy. More
singles followed in the
1970s, including
1974's "
Not Now Arthur"/"
If I Only Had
My Time Again", and in
1975 "I Only Have
Eyes for You"/"One 'Fing 'N' Annuver" with "
Yus My Dear"/"Arthur" released in 1976.
He entered the
UK Singles Chart in 1978 with "
You're the One That
I Want" (from the film,
Grease) with
Hylda Baker, who was in her seventies. The single was taken from the album,
Band On The Trot.
The single was the last professional success of Mullard's life; there followed an uncredited narration on the
Glenn Close-led live action
101 Dalmatians, released in
1996 after his death.
His wife
Florence died of an overdose of sleeping tablets in
1961 after suffering from poor health. Mullard continued to live in a council house in
Islington after his success, and spent much of his free time in local pubs. He died in his sleep on 11 December 1995, aged 85.
In a newspaper interview after his death, Mullard's daughter,
Barbara, claimed he was a pedophile that had sexually abused her for years and had driven her mother to suicide.
- published: 31 Aug 2015
- views: 1536