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Early career and war service, 1939–1946

Carmichael enjoyed his time at RADA, including the fact that women outnumbered men on his course, which he described as "heady stuff" after his boys-only boarding school. He remembered the time at RADA in the late 1930s fondly in his autobiography, describing it as:

A period of unconfined joy, occasioned by my finally shaking off the shackles of school discipline and being able to mix daily with young men and young women who shared my interests and enthusiasms. This joy was, nevertheless, being tempered by the worsening European situation. The fear that now, just as I was standing on the threshold of a future that I had dreamed about for years, the whole thing might be snuffed out like a candle was too unbearable to contemplate.

During his second term Carmichael had his first professional acting role: as a robot in Karel Čapek's R.U.R. at the People's Palace theatre, in Mile End, East London. He recalled the experience as "a dull play performed in a cold and uninspiring theatre and my particular contribution required absolutely no acting talent whatsoever". He then appeared as Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream at RADA's Vanbrugh Theatre. The opening night was 1 September 1939, the day Hitler invaded Poland. After the play's second performance its run was ended, as RADA shut down in anticipation that war was about to be declared; the following day the UK joined the war. Carmichael returned to his familial home and completed the forms to join the Officer Cadet Reserve, hoping to be commissioned as an officer. He helped gather the harvest in a nearby farm until 2 October, when he was attested into the army; he was told he would have to wait until he was twenty—on 18 June 1940—before he started training.

As the early months of the war were marked by limited military action, RADA reassessed its closure, and decided to reopen. Carmichael returned to London and shared lodgings with two fellow RADA students, Geoffrey Hibbert and Patrick Macnee; Carmichael and Macnee became lifelong friends. Between June and August 1940 Carmichael was on a ten-week tour of Nine Sharp, a revue developed by Herbert Farjeon. After the tour Carmichael reported for training on 12 September at Catterick Garrison. After ten weeks' basic training, he was posted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to become an officer cadet. He completed his training and passed out in March 1941 as a second lieutenant in the 22nd Dragoons, part of the Royal Armoured Corps.

At the end of training manoeuvres in November 1941, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, Carmichael was struggling to close the hatch of his Valentine tank when it slammed down, cutting off the top of a finger on his left hand. The surgery was botched and caused him pain for several months; he had a second operation several months later. He described it as "dashed unfortunate" and "my one and only war-wound, albeit a self-inflicted one".

In between training for the liberation of France Carmichael began producing revues and productions as part of his brigade's entertainment. On 16 June 1944, ten days after D-Day, Carmichael and his armoured reconnaissance troop landed in France. He fought through to Germany with the regiment and by the time of Victory in Europe Day in May 1945, he had been promoted to captain and mentioned in despatches.

Carmichael's regiment was part of XXX Corps and an initial post-war challenge in Germany was the welfare of the occupying forces. The corps' commanding officer was Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, who ordered a repertory company to be formed for entertainment. When Carmichael auditioned he recognised the major in charge of the unit as Richard Stone, an actor who had been a contemporary at RADA; Carmichael was taken into the company and assisted Stone with auditioning other members. One of the comedians who auditioned was Frankie Howerd, whom Carmichael thought "very gauche ... too undisciplined and not very funny either. Very much the amateur". Stone disagreed and signed the comic up to perform in a Royal Army Service Corps concert party. The corps' company was also joined by actors from Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA); Carmichael did not often appear on stage with them, but worked as the producer of twenty shows. In April 1946 Stone was promoted and was transferred to the UK; Carmichael was promoted to major and took control of the theatrical company. His leadership of the company was short-lived, as he was demobilised that July.

Early post-war career, 1946–1955

In July 1946 Carmichael signed with Stone, who had also been demobilised and had set up as a theatrical agent. Carmichael obtained his first post-war role in the revue Between Ourselves in mid-1946 before he appeared in two small roles in the comedy She Wanted a Cream Front Door— a hotel receptionist and a BBC reporter. The production went on a twelve-week tour round Britain from October 1946, and then ran at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, for four months.

Between 1947 and 1951 Carmichael appeared on stage in both plays and revues —the latter often at the Players' Theatre in Villiers Street, Charing Cross. He made his debut appearance on BBC television in 1947 in New Faces, a revue that also included Zoe Gail, Bill Fraser and Charles Hawtrey. From 1948 he also began appearing in films, including Bond Street (1948), Trottie True and Dear Mr. Prohack (both 1949); these early roles were minor parts and he was uncredited. He spent much of 1949 in a thirty-week tour of Britain with the operetta The Lilac Domino. According to Jennings, Carmichael's "first conspicuous success" was The Lyric Revue in 1951; the production transferred to The Globe (now the Gielgud Theatre) as The Globe Revue in 1952. He received a positive review in the industry publication The Stage, which reported that he "hits the bull's-eye" for his comic performance in one sketch, "Bank Holiday", which involved him undressing on the beach under a mackintosh.

Carmichael spent the next three years appearing in stage revues and small roles in films. Although he enjoyed working in revues, he was concerned about being stuck in a career rut. In a 1954 interview in The Stage, he said "I'm afraid that managers and directors may think of me only as a revue artist, and much as I enjoy acting in sketches I feel there must be a limit to the number of characters one is able to create. What I would like now is to be offered a part in light comedy or a farce". Between November 1954 and May 1955 he appeared as David Prentice in the stage production of Simon and Laura alongside Roland Culver and Coral Browne at the Strand Theatre, London. The following year a film version was directed by Muriel Box; she asked Carmichael to repeat his role, while Browne and Culver's roles were taken by Kay Kendall and Peter Finch. The reviewer for The Times thought Carmichael "comes near to stealing the film from both of them". In 1955 Carmichael also appeared in The Colditz Story. He played Robin Cartwright, an officer in the Guards, and spent much of his screen time appearing with Richard Wattis; the two men provided an element of comic relief in the film, with what Fairclough describes as a "Flanagan and Allen tribute act". The Colditz Story was Carmichael's ninth film role and he had, Fairclough notes, risen to sixth in the credits behind John Mills and Eric Portman.

Screen success, 1955–1962

In 1955 Carmichael was contacted by the filmmaker twins the Boulting brothers. They wanted him to appear in two film versions of novels—Private's Progress by Alan Hackney and Brothers in Law by Henry Cecil—with an option for five films in all; the final contract was for a total of six films. The Boultings' first work with Carmichael was the 1956 film Private's Progress, a satire on the British Army. The film opened in February 1956 and starred Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price and Terry-Thomas. The film historian Alan Boulton observed "Reviews were decidedly mixed and the critical response did not match the popular enthusiasm for the film"; it was either the second or third most popular film at the British box office that year. Carmichael received praise for his role, however, including from The Manchester Guardian, which thought he "fulfils his promise as a comedian"; the reviewer for The Times thought Carmichael acted "with an unfailing tact and sympathy—he even manages to make a drunken scene seem rich in comedy". The film introduced American audiences to Carmichael, and his screen presence in the US was warmly received by reviewers. The reviewer Margaret Hinxman, writing in Picturegoer, considered that after Private's Progress Carmichael had become "one of Britain's choicest screen exports".

From June to September 1956 Carmichael was involved in the filming of Brothers in Law, which was directed by Roy Boulting; others in the cast included Attenborough and Terry-Thomas. When the film was released in March 1957 Carmichael received positive reviews, including from Philip Oakes, the reviewer from The Evening Standard, who concluded that Carmichael "confirms his placing in my form book as our best light comedian". The reviewer for The Manchester Guardian thought Carmichael was "irrepressibly funny in his well-bred, well-intentioned, bewildered ineptitude".

In September 1957 Carmichael appeared in a third Boulting brothers film, Lucky Jim, in which he appeared alongside Terry-Thomas and Hugh Griffith in an adaptation of a 1954 novel by Kingsley Amis. Fairclough notes that while the film was not well received by the critics, Carmichael's performance received great praise. The Manchester Guardian considered that Carmichael, "although in many ways excellent, has fewer chances than in Brothers-in-Law to delight us with those studies in agonised embarrassment in which he excels", while The Daily Telegraph reviewer considered "[Carmichael's] Jim, complete with North-Country accent and the ability to pull comic faces, might so easily have been the author's creation brought to life off the page."

Carmichael then appeared in a fourth film with the Boultings, Happy Is the Bride, a lightweight comedy of manners released in March 1958 which also included Janette Scott, Cecil Parker, Terry-Thomas and Joyce Grenfell. Carmichael spent much of the end of 1957 and most of 1958 on stage with The Tunnel of Love. The journalist R. B. Marriott described it as a "slightly crazy, wonderfully ridiculous comedy", and it had a five-week tour around the UK which preceded a run at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, between December 1957 and August 1958. During the run, in April 1958, Carmichael was interviewed for Desert Island Discs by Roy Plomley on the BBC Home Service.

Carmichael once again appeared as Stanley Windrush, the character he portrayed in Private's Progress, in his fifth film with the Boultings, I'm All Right Jack, which was released in August 1959. Several other actors from Private's Progress also reprised their roles: Price (as Bertram Tracepurcel); Attenborough (as Sidney De Vere Cox) and Terry-Thomas (as Major Hitchcock). A new character was introduced in the film, Peter Sellers as the trade union shop steward Fred Kite. The film was the highest-grossing at the British box office in 1960 and earned Sellers the award for Best British Actor at the 13th British Academy Film Awards. Although Sellers received most of the plaudits for the film, Carmichael was given good reviews for his role, with The Illustrated London News saying he was "in excellent fooling" and "delicious both at work and at play". In 1960 Carmichael appeared in School for Scoundrels, based on Stephen Potter's "gamesmanship" series of books. Appearing alongside him were Terry-Thomas, Alastair Sim and Janette Scott. The reviews for the film were not positive, but the actors were praised for their work in it.

The release of School for Scoundrels was Carmichael's tenth film in five years. Fairclough observes that during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Carmichael began to get a reputation among his colleagues as being difficult to work with. Eric Maschwitz, the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment for Television, recorded in an internal memo that Carmichael had given "great difficulty" during negotiations, and concluded that "his head seems to have been a little turned by his success". Some actors had to point out to him that he was "doing a Carmichael" whenever he tried to improve his billing, or upstage his fellow actors, including Derek Nimmo in 1962, during the filming of The Amorous Prawn. Despite the criticism, Carmichael described the period as "I think the happiest five or six years of my whole career".

In December 1961 Carmichael was appearing in the comedy mystery play The Gazebo every evening and filming Double Bunk during the day. The mental and physical toll on him was too much, and he collapsed in the middle of a performance. The show's producer, Harold Fielding, instructed Carmichael to take at least two weeks holiday to rest, and he paid for Carmichael and his wife to have a holiday in Switzerland. He returned to the show on 23 December, but he lost his voice during the Boxing Day show and could only complete Act 1. He returned to the show after a few days, but left permanently on 28 January 1962 on his doctor's orders.

Wooster and Wimsey, 1962–1979

Tastes in film changed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with the new wave of British films moving away from plots centred on the upper classes and the establishment, to works such as Look Back in Anger, Room at the Top (both 1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), where working class drama came to the fore. One of the effects of the new movement was a downturn in the number of films that wanted a character like those normally played by Carmichael. He was still being offered some film roles, but all, he said, "were variations on the same old bumbling, accident-prone clot" with which he was becoming increasingly bored.

In August 1964 the BBC approached Carmichael to discuss the possibility of his taking the role of Bertie Wooster—described by Fairclough as "the misadventuring, 1920s upper-class loafer"—for adaptations of the works of P. G. Wodehouse. He turned it down, as he had agreed to appear on Broadway, taking the lead in a production of the farce Boeing-Boeing. He appeared at the Cort Theatre in February 1965, but the run ended after 23 performances, as the farce was not to the taste of New York audiences. Carmichael was delighted by the early close, as he hated his time in the US and said "I found New York a disturbing, violent city and I disliked it instantly". As soon as he heard the production was to close, he sent a telegram to the BBC to note his availability to play Wooster. Carmichael negotiated a fee of 500 guineas (£525) per half-hour episode, and assisted in finding the right person for Jeeves, eventually selecting Dennis Price.

The first series of The World of Wooster received the Guild of Television Producers and Directors award for best comedy series production of 1965, and the programme ran for three series, broadcast between May 1965 and November 1967, comprising twenty episodes in total. Reviews for Carmichael were positive, with a reviewer in The Times declaring "The World of Wooster is also a triumph of casting, for Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price are perfect impersonators of two characters who are by no means lay-figures ... They are a priceless pair." A different reviewer pointed out one drawback of the 44-year-old Carmichael's performance: "If we have thought of Bertie Wooster as eternally 22, not far in time from enjoyably wasted university days, Mr. Ian Carmichael opposes our view with a Bertie who is older but hopefully fixed in an inescapable mental youth." The best review, as far as Carmichael and the producer Michael Mills were concerned, was from Wodehouse, who sent a telegram to the BBC:

To the producer and cast of the Jeeves sketches.

Thank you all for the perfectly wonderful performances. I am simply delighted with it. Bertie and Jeeves are just as I have always imagined them, and every part is played just right.

Bless you!

P. G. Wodehouse

Wodehouse later reconsidered his opinion and thought Carmichael overacted in the role. Only one of the episodes remains: the others were wiped to reuse the expensive videotape.

In September 1970 Carmichael was the lead role in Bachelor Father, a sitcom loosely based on the true story of a single man who fostered twelve children. There were two series—one in 1970, one the following year—and a total of 22 episodes; he negotiated a salary of £1,500 per episode, making him the best-paid actor at the BBC. The media historian Mark Lewisohn thought that the programme, "although ostensibly a middle-of-the-road family sitcom of no great ambition, came over as a polished and professional piece of work that pleased audiences over two extended series".

Carmichael was one of the driving forces behind the BBC's decision to adapt Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey stories for television. He first had the idea of appearing as Wimsey in 1966, but various factors—including financing, Carmichael's association with Bertie Wooster in the public's eye and difficulty obtaining the rights—delayed the project. By January 1971, however, they were able to start filming the first programme, Clouds of Witness, which was broadcast in 1972 in five parts. This was followed by The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors and The Five Red Herrings between February 1973 and August 1975. Richard Last, writing in The Daily Telegraph thought Carmichael was "an inspired piece of casting. ... he has exactly the right outward touch of aristocratic frivolity but more than the ability to suggest the steel underneath". Clive James, reviewing for The Observer, described Carmichael as "an extremely clever actor", and thought he was "turning in one of those thespian efforts which seem easy at the time but which in retrospect are found to have been the ideal embodiment of the written character". Carmichael went on to play Wimsey on BBC Radio 4, recording nine adaptations with Peter Jones as Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey's valet.

In 1979 Carmichael appeared in The Lady Vanishes, which starred Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd; the film was a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 film of the same name. Carmichael appeared as Caldicott alongside Arthur Lowe's character Charters, two cricket-obsessed English gentlemen; the roles were played in the original by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford. The journalist Patrick Humphries, while describing the film as "lamentable", thought that only Carmichael and Lowe "emerge with any credibility". Carmichael was interviewed on Desert Island Discs for a second time in June 1979.

Screen persona and technique

Carmichael learned much of his technique from the thirty-week tour of The Lilac Domino he undertook in the late 1940s, where he appeared opposite the comic actor Leo Franklyn. Carmichael acknowledged the credit for his development as a light comic actor went "in its entirety to the training, coaxing and encouragement of ... Franklyn", who "showed me how to time my laughs and how to play an audience". Carmichael's experience in revue helped when he worked in a dramatic play; his experience in getting a character across to an audience quickly in a short sketch showed him that "it is very important to establish a comedy character as soon as possible. Your whole performance may depend on this being done".

Carmichael polished his performances through extensive rehearsals and training. The screenwriter Paul Dehn acknowledges the effort and discipline needed by Carmichael to achieve a polished feel to his act, describing how Carmichael would "slave for hours to perfect one stumble on a stairway and, having got it, ... [would] make it seem effortless thereafter". Jennings considers much of Carmichael's seemingly effortless light touch "was built on a hugely disciplined and virtuosic technique". Carmichael's choice of comedy was character-, rather than situation-based and when the film or play generated its atmosphere from normal, recognisable aspects of life. He selected his work projects carefully and became involved in the development and production side as closely as possible, or initiated the project himself.

The image he portrayed in many of his works was summarised by one obituarist as "the affable, archetypal silly ass Englishman" with a "wide-eyed boyish grin, bemused courtesy and hapless, trusting manner". He became somewhat typecast with the character, but audiences liked him in the role, and "he polished this persona with great care", according to his obituarist in The Daily Telegraph, even though he tired of playing the role so often. One of the attractions for the public was that he played his parts to get the audience's sympathy for the character, but with a measure of dignity that viewers could relate to. During Carmichael's semi-retirement, the Boulting brothers told him that they had not shown the range of his talents, and that "perhaps they should not virtually have confined him to the playing of twerps". When he took the role of Wimsey—the intelligent, cultured and effective investigator—the critic Nancy Banks-Smith wrote that "it was high time that Ian Carmichael was given the opportunity to look intelligent".

Andrew Courage

Andrew Courage

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Biography

Early life

Early career and war service, 1939–1946

Early post-war career, 1946–1955

Screen success, 1955–1962

Wooster and Wimsey, 1962–1979

Semi-retirement, 1979–2009

Personal life

Screen persona and technique

Notes and references

Related journals

About Andrew Courage

About Andrew Courage

Article

Related journals

Live room · 1 here

Article

Biography

Early life

Early career and war service, 1939–1946

Early post-war career, 1946–1955

Screen success, 1955–1962

Wooster and Wimsey, 1962–1979

Semi-retirement, 1979–2009

Personal life

Screen persona and technique

Notes and references

Related journals