Francis Alick Howard, better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian.
Up Pompeii! is a British television comedy series set in ancient Pompeii and broadcast between 1969 and 1970, starring Frankie Howerd. The first series was written by Talbot Rothwell, a scriptwriter for the Carry On films, and the second series by Rothwell and Sid Colin. Two later specials were transmitted in 1975 and 1991 and a film adaptation was released in 1971.
Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Hattie Jacques was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. She is best known as a regular of the Carry On films, where she typically played strict, no-nonsense characters, but was also a prolific television and radio performer.
Johnny Speight was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms.
You Rang, M'Lord? is a BBC television sitcom written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army. It was broadcast between 1988 and 1993 on the BBC. The show was set in the house of an aristocratic family in the 1920s, contrasting the upper-class family and their servants in a house in London, along the same lines as the drama Upstairs, Downstairs.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a 1978 American jukebox musical comedy film directed by Michael Schultz, written by Henry Edwards and starring an ensemble cast led by Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. Depicting the loosely constructed story of a band as they wrangle with the music industry and battle evil forces bent on stealing their instruments and corrupting their hometown of Heartland, the film is presented in a form similar to that of a rock opera, with the songs providing "dialogue" to carry the story. George Burns has most of the spoken lines that act to clarify the plot and provide further narration but there are a few other lines throughout the movie.
William Simpson Fraser was a Scottish actor who appeared on stage, screen and television for many years. In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play When We Are Married.
The Major and the Minor is a 1942 American romantic comedy film starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. It was the first American film directed by Billy Wilder. The screenplay credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett is "suggested by" the 1923 play Connie Goes Home by Edward Childs Carpenter, based on the 1921 Saturday Evening Post story "Sunny Goes Home" by Fannie Kilbourne.
"Frankie and Johnny" is a murder ballad, a traditional American popular song. It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds her man Johnny making love to another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song she is also executed.
The Runaway Bus is a 1954 British comedy film produced, written and directed by Val Guest. It stars Frankie Howerd, Margaret Rutherford and Petula Clark and an ensemble cast of character actors in a story about a bus caught in fog while a gang of crooks tries to carry off a heist. The film was shot at Southall Studios in London with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Arnold. It was the film debut of Belinda Lee. The film is referenced in an episode of Frankie Howerd's 1970s radio series.
Dennis Anthony John Sharp was an English actor, writer and director.
Beryl Frances Vertue was an English television producer, media executive, and agent. She was founder and chairman of the independent television production company Hartswood Films.
Millie is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by John Francis Dillon from a screenplay by Charles Kenyon and Ralph Morgan, based on a novel of the same name by Donald Henderson Clarke. The film was an independent production by Charles R. Rogers, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, after their acquisition of Pathé Exchange. It stars Helen Twelvetrees in one of her best roles, with a supporting cast that includes Lilyan Tashman, James Hall, Joan Blondell, John Halliday and Anita Louise.
Hugh Archibald Nairn Burden was an English actor and playwright.
Oh! What A Carry On! is a 1971 compilation album of songs performed by actors from the Carry On... film series, and released on the budget Music For Pleasure label. Many were novelty songs with most, such as those by Jim Dale, having previously been released as singles. None were recorded specifically for this album or had any direct relationship to the Carry On films. For example, Kenneth Williams' songs as Rambling Syd Rumpo, which Gramophone magazine described as the best on the album, were taken from Round the Horne and Jim Dale's songs had been hits in the 1950s.
The Shadow is a 1933 British mystery film directed by George A. Cooper and starring Henry Kendall, Elizabeth Allan and Felix Aylmer.
Peter Sykes was an Australian television and film director who worked primarily in the United Kingdom. According to FilmInk, "auteurist critics always seem to pass him by."
Associated London Scripts (ALS) was a writers' agency organised as a co-operative which involved many leading comedy and television writers of the 1950s and 1960s.
Phyllis Avery was an American actress.
