Charlie Drake dies

[trotsky assortment]

This from the news on my desktop this evening:

Comedian Charlie Drake has died at the age of 81 after a long illness caused by two strokes.

His manager Lawrie Mansfield, described the funnyman as the 'last of the great slapstick comedians'.

Mr Mansfield said: 'It is the end of an era, of those comics and comedians that dominated our lives through the 60s and 70s.

'Charlie Drake perhaps was the last of the great slapstick comedians, who combined both verbal humour with knockabout comedy.

'His timing was acknowledged by everybody as being the very very best and his passing is a great personal loss for me. He was a great great comic talent.'

He starred in a string of hit TV shows and films during the 1960s and 1970s and had a pop hit with the comic song My Boomerang Won't Come Back.

He died in his sleep yesterday at Brindsworth House, Twickenham, the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Home where he had lived for about two years.

[Catalogue Trousers]

His version of Please Mr Custer is pretty good as well.

RIP Charlie.

[skibz]

My Grandad is friendly with his brother, and according to him, Charlie Drake was a bit of a womanising twat. I'd contribute something more interesting but that's genuinely all I know about the guy.

Apart from the fact he's dead.

[uncle_rico]

I gotta funny feeling I'll be flamed here, for saying this...but he was great in Sinderella.

"THE GEINE...OOOF THE PRICK!!!

[neveragain]

There's a great story relating to a stunt Charlie Drake had to perform for one sitcom (probably The Worker). In one particular scene, he had to swing through a bookcase and then leap through an open window. This was all made very harmless apparently thanks to the especially loosened and rearranged bookcase - that was until a health and safety officer came in and decided he didn't like the look of it. The result of this being, after this fellow had tightened up the corresponding shelves, Drake was knocked out entirely by the impact of his skull against the wood and then flung unconscious through the bloody window onto the cluttered studio floor backstage - all on live television, no less.

RIP.

[the ruffian on the stair]

Goodbye Charlie  RIP

[Lfbarfe]

My Grandad is friendly with his brother, and according to him, Charlie Drake was a bit of a womanising twat. I'd contribute something more interesting but that's genuinely all I know about the guy.

The twat analysis is borne out by a lot of the interviews I've done for my LE book. Not a nice man, apparently. Details are sketchy, but one told me with a little malicious glee of him storming into their office, making some unreasonable demands then storming out again. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong door and ended up in the stationery cupboard. He felt so humiliated that he stayed there until everyone in the office had gone home.

[neveragain]

But unfortunately the impact of his skull against the wood meant that he was knocked completely unconscious, and the cupboard was then flung out of the window - all on live television, to boot!

RIP

[Bert Thung]

I've seen that clip of him being knocked unconscious. As I remember, the audience is still laughing, and the other actors continue dragging him around the set after he was knocked unconscious.

[Feetlebaum]

I saw it live...

He was pulled through the bookcase as planned but was knocked unconscious. The rumour at the time was that a studio carpenter had purposely not sawn through the breakaway parts sufficiently -- Mr Drake was diifficult to work with...

There was a hiatus while the others on set waited for him to leap out of the window... eventually they picked him up and pushed him through the window out of sight.

[biniput]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGxaNx9jkpg

Traditional humour  Charlie style.

[gepree]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGxaNx9jkpg

Traditional humour  Charlie style.

I was hoping this was going to be a clip of the aforementioned incident where Charlie knocks himself unconscious on a bookcase, so you can imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a rather weak double entendre repeated incessantly over a period of 3 minutes.

Geoff

[TC Raymond]

I liked the description of Drake by an employee at his nursing home - "He sits at the bar like a cross and ancient baby, glowering at us all".

I wish somebody would dig up the Charlie Drake / Henry McGee sketch about Kenneth Tynan's sudden use of the f-word on BBC3 circa 1965. There was basically one joke - Drake kept seeming as if he was about to say "FUCK!" and McGee had to keep shutting him up - but it was done with enough old-school cheeky charm to make it genuinely funny.

RIP little feller.

[neveragain]

Traditional humour  Charlie style.

You've got to love one of the comments near the page's bottom - 'He left us a legacy of laughter', how fitting for that particular clip.

[biniput]

If i had found THAT clip the wording would have been different.  Something along the lines of 'Charlies Finest hour' or some such.

[Boing]

The only tribute you can pay him is that he was the godfather of soul,simple as that.

[Glebe]

Aw, sorry to hear that. RIP.

[Howj Begg]

Ok, Boing's last post there is enough to redeem him.