As Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army John Le Mesurier was
the epitome of insouciance and languor. Cuffs undone, a
half smile on his lips, oozing charm for the ladies - to
the pompous bantam cock that was Captain Mainwaring
everything about his deputy spoke lounge lizard rather
than soldier. The real life of John Le Mesurier, as this
authorised and definitive biography shows, was rather
more complicated. To some extent Sergeant Wilson was
indeed Le Mesurier playing himself - a man who
prioritised a thorough perusal of the Racing Post in the
morning before buckling down to rehearsals; who once
sweet-talked a make-up girl into taking his watch off
his wrist, winding it up for him, and tenderly putting
it back on; from whom his friends would receive an
early-evening phone call at witching hour consisting
merely of a murmured, 'Playtime...?' But while his
acting career, ranging from I'm All Right, Jack to
Brideshead Revisited, found a glorious and sustained
Indian summer in the greatest situation comedy British
television has ever produced, in his private life this
mild, quietly-spoken, decent man was plagued by turmoil
and heartbreak.Married three times, he saw his first
wife succumb to alcoholism, his second - the comedy diva
Hattie Jacques - move her lover into the family home,
and his third (though devotedly caring for him to the
end of his life) enjoy a passionate dalliance with his
former screen colleague Tony Hancock. Ultimately, as
this sympathetic and moving book shows, John Le Mesurier
was a far more courageous, profound and admirable man
than Sergeant Wilson was ever meant to be, and is
immortalised in the ubiquitous repeats of Dad's
Army. |
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