Terry-Thomas

British comedian and actor (1911-1990)

Terry-Thomas (born Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens;[1] 14 July 1911 – 8 January 1990) was an English actor and comedian.

Terry-Thomas in 1961

Some of his best known roles were in Private's Progress (1956), The Green Man (1956), Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957), I'm All Right Jack (1959) and Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959). From the early 1960s, Terry-Thomas began appearing in American movies such as Bachelor Flat, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and How to Murder Your Wife. Although there were exceptions, Terry-Thomas's screen characters were generally similar; Geoff Mayer wrote that "although there would be variations, he would remain the 'rotter', a pretentious, elitist, seedy, sometimes lecherous cad with an eye for quick money and the easy life".[98] Eric Sykes, with whom Terry-Thomas shared a number of screen moments, said it was "always the same character and always funny".[163] Andrew Spicer, writing for the British Film Institute, called him "the definitive postwar cad or rotter".[125] Terry-Thomas himself agreed with the view he presented, writing in the 1980s that "T-T with his permanent air of caddish disdain ... bounder ... aristocratic rogue ... upper-class English twit ... genuine English eccentric ... one of the last real gentlemen ... wet, genteel Englishman ... high-bred idiot ... cheeky blighter ... camel-haired cad ... amiable buffoon ... pompous Englishman ... twentieth-century dandy ... stinker ... king of the cads ... All those descriptions added up to my image as Terry-Thomas" Among the cads that he plays:

In 1971, Terry-Thomas was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died at a nursing home on 8 January 1990 in Godalming, Surrey at the age of 78.

References

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  1. Passenger & Crew Manifests of Airplanes Arriving at Los Angeles, California; NAI Number: 2788930; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2009; Record Group Number: 85

Other websites

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