Will Hay Collection [DVD]

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In March 1952 he was admitted to hospital in Kettering after two weeks of hiccuping. [3] He still made sporadic cinema film appearances in minor parts, the last being in the 1963 film 80,000 Suspects, directed by Val Guest, who was a writer of many of the films that Moffatt starred in with Will Hay and Moore Marriott. [4] Personal life and death [ edit ] Will Hay (1888 - 1949) was a British comic actor who toured the music halls of the world with his 'schoolmaster' routine. In the 1930s he moved into films, starring in classics like 'Oh, Mr. Porter!' (1937), joined by his co-stars Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. Hay was also a keen amateur astronomer, a polyglot, a pilot (he taught Amy Johnson to fly) and of course a brilliant comic writer and director. Gregory, Paul. "Northiam". Weston Clevedon and Portishead Railway. Archived from the original on 18 March 2012 . Retrieved 13 May 2011. Hay's tenure with Ealing was a box office success and his films were critically acclaimed, but have been described as not at the level of his Gainsborough films with Moffatt and Marriott. [6] Radio career [ edit ]

a b c d e "Will Hay: the lost master of British comedy". The Daily Telegraph. London. 16 January 2009 . Retrieved 10 May 2017. Hay was scheduled to star in another film for Ealing in 1943, Bob's Your Uncle, but his diagnosis of cancer prevented him from proceeding. [27]

Dean, Martin; Kevin Robertson; Roger Simmonds (1998). The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway. Crusader Press. pp.76–81. In his later years, Marriott kept a grocer's store in Bognor Regis, and it is where he died on 11 December 1949; only eight months after the death of his comedy partner Will Hay. Cause of death was cardiac syncope, acute pulmonary oedema and chronic myocardiac degeneration caused by earlier pneumonia. He outlived his mother and his father by merely three years and nine years respectively. [3] He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes were also interred. Moffatt's life story was made into a short film by The Will Hay Appreciation Society which features interviews from his three children, Richard, Chris and Jayne. The film is called Graham Moffatt: Britain's Favourite Fat Boy. [1]

The plot of Oh, Mr Porter was loosely based on the Arnold Ridley play The Ghost Train. The title was taken from Oh! Mr Porter, a music hall song. Despite the majority of the film being set in Northern Ireland, none of the filming took place there; the railway station at Buggleskelly was the disused Cliddesden railway station on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, which had closed to goods in 1936. [1] Oh, Mr Porter! was filmed at Cliddesden between May and July 1937. All the interior shots were made at Gainsborough Studios, Shepherds Bush, during the August. [2] The windmill in which Porter and his colleagues are trapped is located at Terling, Essex, [3] and "Gladstone", the ancient steam locomotive, was portrayed by No. 2 Northiam 2-4-0T built by Hawthorn Leslie in 1899 and loaned by the Kent and East Sussex Railway to the film. The engine was returned to the company after completion of the film and remained in service until 1941, when it was scrapped. [4] [5]a b Mobberley, Martin P.; Goward, Kenneth J. (April 2009). "Will Hay (1888-1949) and his telescopes". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 119 (2): 67–81. Bibcode: 2009JBAA..119...67M. The title sequence uses scenes shot at a variety of locations on the Waterloo to Southampton railway line and also between Maze Hill and Greenwich in south-east London. The scene in which Porter travels to Buggleskelly by bus, while being warned of a terrible danger by locals, parodies that of the Tod Browning film, Dracula (1931). [6] Will Hay's new direction: My Learned Friend". The British Film Institute. 1 June 2015 . Retrieved 11 May 2017.

Graham Victor Harold Moffatt (6 December 1919 – 2 July 1965) was an English comedic character actor. He is best known for a number of films where he appeared with Will Hay and Moore Marriott as 'Albert': a plump cheekily insolent street-savvy youth. Peebles, Curtis (26 April 2016). Asteroids: A History. Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 9781944466046 . Retrieved 11 May 2017. a b "Jimmy Perry obituary: Creator of Dad's Army who used his own life experiences in much-loved sitcom". The Independent. London. 24 October 2016 . Retrieved 9 May 2017. Pathé, British. " 'Star' Turns Star Gazer Will Hay Discovers Spot On Saturn. 'School-Master Comedian' Tells How He Located White Blemish On Planet". www.britishpathe.com . Retrieved 9 June 2021. Comedians who have cited Hay as an influence include Ken Dodd, [43] Eric Morecambe, Tommy Cooper, Harry Worth, [22] Harry Enfield, Jimmy Perry and David Croft. [10] Ronnie Barker also cited Hay as an influence, and in 1976 hosted a documentary on BBC Radio that discussed Hay's life and career. [6] Legacy [ edit ] The Will Hay Appreciation Society's 'Buggleskelly' memorial bench to Will Hay and his co-stars, unveiled on Sunday 14 October 2018 in Cliddesden, Hampshire, the filming location for 'Oh, Mr. Porter!'During his time with Gainsborough Hay worked with Marcel Varnel, Val Guest, Charles Hawtrey, and Marriott Edgar, as well as Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt, who were Hay's straight men in a number of his films. Moffatt played Albert, the overweight, insolent schoolboy reminiscent of Billy Bunter, while Marriott was the toothless old Harbottle. The trio appeared in six films together between 1936 and 1940, Windbag the Sailor, Oh, Mr. Porter!, Convict 99, Old Bones of the River, Ask a Policeman and Where's That Fire?. In 1907 Hay married Gladys Perkins (1889–1982), [36] whom he had known since he was 15, [37]. They legally separated on 18 November 1935. However, they never divorced and Gladys cited the reason for this was that she was a Roman Catholic. [5] They had two daughters and a son: Gladys Elspeth Hay (1909–1979), William Edward Hay (1913–1995) [38] and Joan A. Hay (1917–1975). [39] Following his separation from Gladys in 1935, he was in a long-term relationship with Randi Kopstadt, a native of Norway. [5] Top 100 Movie Lists – BFI's 360 Classic Feature Films". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009 . Retrieved 16 March 2007. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL ( link) Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

Hay kept his career in astronomy separate from his comedy career and published Through My Telescope under the name of W.T. Hay, using the same title when giving lectures on astronomy. [6] Hay was an advocate for education on astronomy and considered those who had an interest in astronomy "the only men who see life in its true proportion". In a 1933 interview with the Daily Mail he stated "If we were all astronomers, there'd be no more war." [33] He was a friend of William Herbert Steavenson, who would go on to become the President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1957. [33]

In June 1932 he joined the British Astronomical Association, in November of the same year he became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. [29] [30] He is noted for having discovered a Great White Spot on the planet Saturn in 1933. [31] [32] The Chief leaves after Harbottle makes up a story about a Headless Horseman when questioned about his old looks. Dudfoot states that they need to arrest a criminal soon or else their police station will be closed down and Harbottle takes him to the library to look for books on crime. On their way the coastguard stops them and tells them his brother a lighthouse keeper wants a light hung up on top of the police station as his grandmother is very ill and he agreed to the idea that if he could see the light on the Police Station tower he'd know his grandmother was still alive. (Harbottle misunderstands this, thinking that the grandmother is alone in the lighthouse, causing him to sob uncontrollably whenever the matter is mentioned.) Unknown to the cops, this is connected to the smugglers. The film was produced by Gainsborough Pictures, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released on 28 August, 1939. After a celebration in which Harbottle points out that Gladstone is ninety years old and Porter claims it is good for another ninety, the engine explodes. Porter, Harbottle and Albert lower their hats in respect.