| Arthur Haynes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Arthur H. Haynes 14 May 1914 West London |
| Died | 19 November 1966 (aged 52) Ealing, London |
| Occupation | Comedian |
Arthur Haynes (19 May 1914 in Fulham, London, England [1] – 19 November 1966 Ealing, London [2] was an English comedian and star of The Arthur Haynes Show, a comedy sketch series produced by ATV from 1957 until his death from a heart attack in 1966. Haynes's most popular character was a working class tramp — created by screenwriter Johnny Speight, who also wrote the iconic BBC Television working class sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. Speight said he got the idea of the tramp from a real tramp who climbed into his Rolls Royce when it was stopped at a traffic light.
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Arthur Haynes was the only child of a Fulham (south-west London) baker.[3] He started off in a number of odd jobs, doing painting (he was very proud of his painting in later years), plumbing and joinery[3] till the Second World War broke out. He then became an entertainer while serving with the Royal Engineers during the war. Charlie Chester related a story where they were waiting outside Caen and Haynes pointed to a trench full of mud and a million tiny frogs and said nothing would get him into that. Just then a Fokker plane started firing near them and Haynes dived straight into the trench and afterwards emerged covered in mud and frogs.
He appeared with Charlie Chester in the concert party "Stars in Battledress". He continued to work with Chester after the war in the BBC Radio series Stand Easy (1946-49)Chester hadn't wanted him originally as he had a full cast but once he heard Haynes give a high pitched laugh, he knew he could use it and found a place for him. They became a double act in the show where Chester wrote the scripts. On 21 February 1956, Haynes appeared in the first edition of ATV variety show series Strike a New Note.[3] After several appearances in this and subsequent variety series Get Happy (written by Dick Barry, Johnny Speight and John Antrobus), he was given his own show in 1957.[3]
His ATV shows, networked on ITV, made Haynes the most popular comedian in Britain. There were 95 thirty-minute shows, 62 thirty-five-minute shows and one fifty-minute show, spread over fifteen series. In 1963 and 1964 Haynes worked with Dermot Kelly who played another tramp (called Irish), who was not very smart. Sometimes Patricia Hayes would join them as a woman tramp. The shows were played out on a stage, and basic scenery and props were used where, for instance, the audience could see outside and inside a house, as there was no wall on their side. The stars sometimes forgot (or didn't bother to learn) their lines, and would ad lib them. If someone fluffed a line, that would be used to get more laughs. Haynes and others sometimes failed to keep a straight face, and occasionally burst into laughter.
The shows would also feature musical guests, such as The Springfields in 1963, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen in 1964, and Joe Brown and the Bruvvers and The Dave Clark Five in 1965. A number of the shows started and ended with Aurthur Haynes driving a horse and cart along a narrow country lane, whistling and (unconvincingly) playing a harmonica. Some began with a cartoon workman using a drill on the show's title.
Haynes received the Variety Club's award as ITV Personality of 1961 and appeared on the Royal Variety Performance in the same year.[3] The shows also made a minor star of Nicholas Parsons, who tended to play supercilious neighbours and authority figures in the comedy sketches. Eventually, as the public began to recognise Parsons's skill as a straight man, Haynes decided to dispense with his services. Other stars also made early appearances: in 1962 Michael Caine played a burglar burgling the same house as Haynes's character. Haynes had a good singing voice, which he rarely used on TV, and in 1960 performed a sketch called The Haynes brothers, where he and Dickie Valentine, wearing a moustache, sang together.
The Arthur Haynes Show was also a success on BBC radio, recorded before live audiences. It ran through four series from 1962-1965.[3] He also recorded Arthur Again. Both series were scripted by Johnny Speight.[3]
In 1965 Haynes appeared in the Rock Hudson/Gina Lollobrigida movie Strange Bedfellows. While in Hollywood, Cary Grant turned up with an entourage at a place where Haynes was and lavished great praise on him, calling him the greatest comedy star in the world. In 1966, he appeared as a patient in the British film Doctor in Clover.[3] However his potential film career was cut short by his sudden death of a heart attack. He died at the height of his career with his full potential unfulfilled.
Censorship on sex was very strong in those days but other things got through which would nowadays give a producer a heart attack if he read such things in a script. Johnny Speight, who later wrote the very controversial Till Death Us Do Part, wrote one such sketch for Dermot Kelly (Haynes was not involved). Kelly had rooms to let (as was common in those days) and a black man turned up and (as was common in those days too) Kelly turned him away because of his colour. Next, two Irishmen turned up and Kelly was very pleased to get two of his own countrymen, so he let them have the room. Later he decides to see how they are getting on and goes up the (stage) stairs and peers through the keyhole at them (we see with the camera what he saw) and out of their suitcases the two men are taking bombs of the round black kind with fuses on top. Kelly is shocked that his own people would do this, people who, in this case, are obviously members of the Irish Republican Army.
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