Arthur Lowe: A Life

by StephenLowe (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1996

  $4.37

  The early career of Arthur Lowe (1915-1982) was that of a typical struggling actor. First the army (No. 2 Field Entertainment Unit), then years of weekly rep. His 'big break' came in 1952 when he played Senator Brockbank in the London premiere of Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam. Then Pal Joey, then The Pajama Game. And all the time, bits on radio and television, character roles in Ealing Comedies and, repeatedly, TV commercials. In 1961 a new TV soap, rather experimental, was launched in Manchester. Arthur played Leonard Swindley. The soap was Coronation Street, and Arthur became a household face. He kept faith with 'serious acting, appearing at the National in Shakespeare, at the Royal Court in plays by John Osborne and Edward Bond, and in a string of films of Lindsay Anderson, This Sporting Life, If..., O Lucky Man. But television loved his comic genius, and Captain Mainwaring beckoned. Arthur made 81 episodes of Dad's Army in nine years... This candid and touching biography gives us Arthur from the inside - the loving husband, the pompous father, the passionate amateur sailor - but also the hard-working actor, going off to the theatre each night, regular as clockwork, with his sandwiches in a lunch-box. For the author, Arthur's only son, now 43, the book has been a journey of discovery, a voyage round his father, and there is a terrific poignancy as he unearths the man he only partly knew.