69 Facts About Ian Carmichael

In 1955 Carmichael was noticed by the film producers John and Roy Boulting, who cast him in five of their films as one of the major players.

Much of Ian Carmichael's success came through a disciplined approach to training and rehearsing for a role.

Ian Carmichael learned much about the craft and technique of humour while appearing with the comic actor Leo Franklyn.

Ian Gillett Carmichael was born on 18 June 1920 in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Ian Carmichael was the eldest child of Kate and her husband Arthur Denholm Carmichael, an optician on the premises of his family's firm of jewellers.

Ian Carmichael had two younger sisters, the twins Mary and Margaret, who were born in December 1923.

Robert Fairclough, his biographer, describes Ian Carmichael's upbringing as a "privileged, pampered existence"; his parents employed maids and a cook.

In 1928 Ian Carmichael was sent to Scarborough College, a prep school in North Yorkshire, which he attended between the ages of seven and thirteen.

Ian Carmichael did not like the spartan and authoritarian regime at the school.

In 1933 Ian Carmichael left Scarborough College and entered Bromsgrove School, a public school in Worcestershire.

Ian Carmichael soon concluded that "the new curriculum was not arduous", which gave him the opportunity for focus on matters that were of more interest for him: acting, popular music and cricket.

Ian 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.

Ian Carmichael remembered the time at RADA in the late 1930s fondly in his autobiography, describing it as:.

Ian Carmichael recalled the experience as "a dull play performed in a cold and uninspiring theatre and my particular contribution required absolutely no acting talent whatsoever".

Ian Carmichael then appeared as Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream at RADA's Vanbrugh Theatre.

Ian Carmichael returned to his familial home and completed the forms to join the Officer Cadet Reserve, hoping to be commissioned as an officer.

Ian Carmichael returned to London and shared lodgings with two fellow RADA students, Geoffrey Hibbert and Patrick Macnee; Ian Carmichael and Macnee became lifelong friends.

Between June and August 1940 Ian Carmichael was on a ten-week tour of Nine Sharp, a revue developed by Herbert Farjeon.

Ian Carmichael completed his training and passed out in March 1941 as a second lieutenant in the 22nd Dragoons, part of the Royal Armoured Corps.

Ian Carmichael 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 Ian Carmichael began producing revues and productions as part of his brigade's entertainment.

Ian Carmichael 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.

Ian Carmichael's regiment was part of 30 Corps and an initial post-war challenge in Germany was the welfare of the occupying forces.

When Ian Carmichael auditioned he recognised the major in charge of the unit as Richard Stone, an actor who had been a contemporary at RADA; Ian Carmichael was taken into the company and assisted Stone with auditioning other members.

The corps' company was joined by actors from Entertainments National Service Association ; Ian Carmichael did not often appear on stage with them, but worked as the producer of twenty shows.

In July 1946 Ian Carmichael signed with Stone, who had been demobilised and had set up as a theatrical agent.

Ian Carmichael made his debut appearance on BBC television in 1947 in New Faces, a revue that included Zoe Gail, Bill Fraser and Charles Hawtrey.

Ian Carmichael spent much of 1949 in a thirty-week tour of Britain with the operetta The Lilac Domino.

Ian Carmichael 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.

Ian Carmichael spent the next three years appearing in stage revues and small roles in films.

The reviewer for The Times thought Ian Carmichael "comes near to stealing the film from both of them".

Ian Carmichael 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".

In 1955 Ian Carmichael was contacted by the filmmaker twins the Boulting brothers.

The Boultings' first work with Ian Carmichael was the 1956 film Private's Progress, a satire on the British Army.

The reviewer Margaret Hinxman, writing in Picturegoer, considered that after Private's Progress Ian Carmichael had become "one of Britain's choicest screen exports".

From June to September 1956 Ian 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.

The reviewer for The Manchester Guardian thought Carmichael was "irrepressibly funny in his well-bred, well-intentioned, bewildered ineptitude".

In September 1957 Ian 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, Ian Carmichael's performance received great praise.

Ian Carmichael then appeared in a fourth film with the Boultings, Happy Is the Bride, a lightweight comedy of manners released in March 1958 which included Janette Scott, Cecil Parker, Terry-Thomas and Joyce Grenfell.

Ian Carmichael spent much of the end of 1957 and most of 1958 on stage with The Tunnel of Love.

Ian Carmichael 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.

In 1960 Ian Carmichael appeared in School for Scoundrels, based on Stephen Potter's "gamesmanship" series of books.

Fairclough observes that during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ian 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 Ian Carmichael had given "great difficulty" during negotiations, and concluded that "his head seems to have been a little turned by his success".

In December 1961 Ian Carmichael was appearing in the comedy mystery play The Gazebo every evening and filming Double Bunk during the day.

Ian Carmichael returned to the show after a few days, but left permanently on 28 January 1962 on his doctor's orders.

Ian Carmichael 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.

Ian Carmichael turned it down, as he had agreed to appear on Broadway, taking the lead in a production of the farce Boeing-Boeing.

Ian Carmichael 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.

Ian 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".

Ian Carmichael negotiated a fee of 500 guineas per half-hour episode, and assisted in finding the right person for Jeeves, eventually selecting Dennis Price.

In September 1970 Ian Carmichael was the lead role in Bachelor Father, a sitcom loosely based on the true story of a single man who fostered twelve children.

Ian Carmichael went on to play Wimsey on BBC Radio 4, recording nine adaptations with Peter Jones as Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey's valet.

In 1979 Ian 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.

Ian 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.

Ian Carmichael was interviewed on Desert Island Discs for a second time in June 1979.

Ian Carmichael continued to work periodically, including providing the voice for Rat in the 1983 film The Wind in the Willows and as the narrator for the television series of the same name between 1984 and 1990.

Ian Carmichael revisited the works of Wodehouse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, providing the voice of Galahad Threepwood for two radio productions, Pigs Have Wings and Galahad at Blandings.

Ian Carmichael undertook his last stage role in June 1995, playing Sir Peter Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

In 1984 Ian Carmichael recorded a series of short stories for the BBC; the programmes were produced by Kate Fenton.

Ian Carmichael enjoyed playing and watching cricket, and listed it as one of this interests in Who's Who.

Ian Carmichael was a member of the Lord's Taverners cricket charity from 1956 until October 1976, and would relax on film sets playing a casual game with other members of the cast and crew, a practice he was introduced to by the Boulting brothers.

Ian Carmichael was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

In 2003 Ian Carmichael was appointed OBE for services to drama.

Ian Carmichael died on 5 February 2010 of a pulmonary embolism.

Ian 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.

Ian Carmichael selected his work projects carefully and became involved in the development and production side as closely as possible, or initiated the project himself.

Ian Carmichael 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.