Remembering Norman Wisdom
Horseplay
After World War II, British actor Rex Harrison encouraged Wisdom to become a professional entertainer after watching him in an armed-forces revue. "If you don't become a professional comedian when you're back in Civvy Street, you're mad," he advised. Wisdom listened and toured the U.K. as the straight man to the magician David Nixon, and his classic character the Gump was born. The transition to movies came in the 1950s with the Rank studio, where he played the fool in a shrunken jacket and flat cap, all the while defying a character called Mr. Grimsdale and still somehow getting the girl in the final frame. By the time of this 1965 movie, The Early Bird (in which he plays a milkman who takes his milk-cart horse home with him), Wisdom was an established star. From 1955 to 1966, he eclipsed Sean Connery's James Bond as Britain's biggest box-office draw.