12 Facts About Ernie Lotinga

Ernest Lotinga was a British comedian and film actor.

Ernie Lotinga became known for the Josser character whom he portrayed in a series of comedy films during the 1930s.

Ernie Lotinga was born in Sunderland into a middle class Jewish family of partly Danish origin.

Ernie Lotinga's father was a respected community leader who part-financed the local synagogue.

Ernie Lotinga began his stage career by performing Leno's sketches, under the stage name Dan Roe, and by the late 1890s developed a strong reputation in his own right as a comedic talent.

Ernie Lotinga joined a touring comedy troupe, the Six Brothers Luck, who included Shaun Glenville, and in 1901 Lotinga married another popular music hall entertainer, the male impersonator Hetty King.

In 1909, after a poorly-received tour of the United States with the Six Brothers Luck, Ernie Lotinga left the troupe, and developed his own act as the character Jimmy Josser, an "irreverent everyman".

Ernie Lotinga maintained the Josser character in theatre tours over subsequent decades.

The Lord Chamberlain's Office described the show as "a farrago of idiocy, vulgarity and sham sentiment", and Ernie Lotinga was obliged to rewrite the script.

In 1928, Ernie Lotinga moved into sound films, at first making a series of shorts for DeForest Phonofilms, and then, from 1931, making feature films.

Ernie Lotinga featured in broadcasts on BBC radio from the mid-1930s.

Ernie Lotinga died in Hammersmith, London in 1951, aged 76.