Ian Carmichael, OBE
(18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010)
Ian Carmichael was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.
Carmichael was born in Hull, Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School. He was not academically inclined, preferring to lead the local dance band until the stage took his fancy and he studied for a spell at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his stage debut as a robot at the People's Palace in Mile End, East London in 1939. With the outbreak of World War II his acting career was interrupted by service with the Royal Armoured Corps, as a commissioned officer.
He portrayed serious characters in Betrayed (1954), starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner, and in The Colditz Story (1955), but he made his name playing in a series of films for the Boulting Brothers, including Private's Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), as well as similar films for other producers, for example School for Scoundrels (1960). He also appeared in the "Pride" segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971).
During the 1960s and 1970s, he was successful on television, including the sitcom, Bachelor Father, based on the story of a real-life bachelor who took on several foster children. But it is probably his portrayals on television of PG Wodehouse's dithering Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L Sayers's elegant Lord Peter Wimsey which underlined his gifts as an exponent of the light English comedy of manners to greatest effect. Carmichael continued to act until shortly before his death.
Ian Carmichael was married twice. His first wife was Jean Pyman (Pym) McLean (1943–1983, until her death). They had two daughters, Lee and Sally. He married Kate Fenton, novelist in 1992. He had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren
Ian Carmichael died at his home in the Esk Valley on the North York Moors, England. According to his wife, Kate, he had fallen ill over Christmas.
RIP
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