Alfie Bass (born Abraham Basalinsky, 10 April 1916[1] – 16 July 1987) was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; his parents had left Russia many years before he was born.[2] He appeared in a variety of stage, film, television and radio productions throughout his career.
Alfie Bass was born Abraham Basalinsky in Bethnal Green in London's East End. He was the youngest of ten children of Jacob Basalinsky, who had fled Jewish persecution in Russia, and his wife, Ada Miller. After leaving school, he worked in his father's trade as a cabinet-maker. During this time, he took part in amateur dramatics at a local boys' club. He was active in the labour movement and often attended union meetings. In 1936, he took part in the Battle of Cable Street, in which activists attempted to prevent a march through the East End by the British Union of Fascists.[3]
At the outbreak of World War II, he was rejected by the RAF, and went to work in an engineering factory. He was later called up into the Middlesex Regiment as a despatch rider. He maintained his interest in acting by appearing in concert parties and in Army Film Unit documentaries.[4]
In 1946, he married Beryl Bryson, a dressmaker, in Liverpool. They had a son and a daughter.[3]
Stage career
Bass's acting career began at London's Unity Theatre in the late 1930s, appearing in Plant in the Sun alongside Paul Robeson, and as the pantomime King in Babes In the Wood.
He starred in Roman Polanski's vampire film The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) (British title The Dance of the Vampires) as innkeeper Yoine Shagal with his daughter Sarah played by Sharon Tate. In the course of the film, he and his daughter become vampires. When a maid tries to scare him off with a crucifix, he responds with "Oy, have you got the wrong vampire!".
In his book British Film Character Actors (1982), Terence Pettigrew remembers, "there was a time when no British film seemed complete without Alfie Bass popping up in some guise or other. Basically playing the same character, he has hopped chirpily from drama to comedy and into costume pieces and back like an energised sparrow. To all of these, he has added an engaging warmth and sanguinity".
Television and radio
Bass appeared as a poacher rescued by Robin Hood in the first episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene, in episode 2 "The Moneylender", as well as in episode 10 of the first series which was titled "The Ordeal". He also appeared in two later episodes during season two titled "The Goldmaker" (episode 5) and "The Goldmaker's Return" (episode 22) as Lepidus, the roguish alchemist, rescued from the Sheriff by Little John (Archie Duncan). He appeared in The Army Game (1957–1961), a British TV comedy series, as Private Montague 'Excused Boots' Bisley, and its sequel Bootsie and Snudge from 1960 to 1963 (there was also a one series revival in colour in 1974), working at a Gentlemen's club with Bill Fraser as 'Claude Snudge' and Clive Dunn as 'Henry Beerbohm Johnson'. Bass additionally played the character in another spin-off, Foreign Affairs, in 1964. Bass also played Lemuel "Lemmy" Barnet in the third and fourth series of the landmark 1950s science fictionBBC Radio series Journey into Space.
He continued working throughout the 1970s and 80s, particularly in the TV series' Till Death Us Do Part and Are You Being Served?, the latter as Mr. Goldberg, the second in a series of replacements for Arthur Brough's Mr. Grainger character (the first being James Hayter's Mr. Tebbs). As in the Mr. Goldberg role, he often emphasised his Jewish background in his on-screen characterisations.
Bass appeared in a 1979 episode of the ITV drama series Danger UXB: Just Like a Woman, as a family man with an unexploded bomb in his back garden.
Bass played a memorable Silas Wegg in the BBC's 1976 adaptation of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. He also played Isaac Rag in a notable recurring character role in the 1979–1980 Dick Turpin series, and Morrie Levin, a shrewd accountant, in the Minder episode The Son Also Rises (1982).[9]
He also guest starred in two episodes of the British comedy television The Goodies, in which he appeared as the "Town Planner" in Camelot, and as the "Giant" in The Goodies and the Beanstalk.
Recording career
In 1955, Bass recorded the novelty song "Pity the Downtrodden Landlord".[10] It was issued by the folk music label Topic Records on a 78rpm single, backed with "Housing Repairs And Rents Act", written by Fred Dallas; on both sides, Bass was accompanied by "The Four Bailiffs".[11]
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