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Norman Wisdom est un Acteur et Scénariste Britannique né le 4 février 1915 à Londres (Royaume-uni)

Norman Wisdom

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Nom de naissance Norman Joseph Wisdom
Nationalité Royaume-uni
Naissance 4 février 1915 à Londres (Royaume-uni)
Mort 4 octobre 2010 (à 95 ans)
Récompenses Officier de l'ordre de l'Empire britannique

Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English actor, comedian, and singer-songwriter best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin. Wisdom gained celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania where his films were the only ones by Western actors permitted by dictator Enver Hoxha to be shown. Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown".

Wisdom later forged a career on Broadway in New York and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently in 1981. He toured Australia and South Africa. After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a hospice was named in his honour. In 1995 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and of Tirana. The same year he received an OBE.

Wisdom was knighted in 2000 and spent much of his later life on the Isle of Man. His later appearances included roles in Last of the Summer Wine and Coronation Street, and he retired from acting at the age of 90 after his health deteriorated.

Biographie

Wisdom was married twice. His first wife was Doreen Brett, whom he married in 1941. By 1944 they had separated when Doreen gave birth to a son, Michael (born 1944), fathered by Albert Gerald Hardwick, a telephone engineer. The marriage was dissolved in 1946.

He married his second wife, Freda Isobel Simpson, a dancer, in 1947; they had two children: Nicholas (born 1953, who later played first-class cricket for Sussex) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969, with Wisdom granted full custody of the children. Freda Wisdom died in Brighton in 1992.

Popular in the Isle of Man, he lived for 27 years in a house in Andreas named Ballalough (Manx language for "place of the lake", though really a humorous corruption of the English "belly laugh"). A supporter of various charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for the Manx girl group Twisted Angels, for their single "LA", in support of the local charity Project 21.

During the 1960s he was involved in a famous legal case (Wisdom v Chamberlain, 1968) in which he was pursued by the Inland Revenue for tax on profits made from the sale of silver bullion he had bought when concerned about the further devaluation of sterling. He contended that it was an investment, but the court held that it had been a trading venture and was duly chargeable to income tax.

Interests
Wisdom was a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion. He also liked Everton and Newcastle United. He enjoyed golf, and was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. He was a Honorary Member of the Winkle Club, a famous charity in Hastings, East Sussex.

A lover of cars, his collection included a 1956 Bentley S1 Continental R Type fastback, which he first bought in 1961, and then again in the late 1980s. In 1969 he purchased, after the divorce from Freda Isobel Simpson, a Shelby Cobra 427, CSX3206, in New York, which he kept until 1986, when it was sold to another car enthusiast in Brighton, UK. Until his age and declining mental health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness-to-drive test, he owned and drove a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, which were sold in September 2005.

In 1963, he commissioned D. J. (Rick) Richardson to design a new motor yacht. The 94 feet (29 m) long hull and superstructure were built in Spain for £80,000, before being towed to Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex for fitting-out. After three years of extensive works and sea trials, she was named M/Y Conquest and valued at £1.25 million by insurers. One of the first private yachts available for charter at £6,000 a month, she was later based in ports on the Mediterranean Sea, and finally at Port Vauban, Antibes, where Wisdom sold her. Refitted and recommissioned, she is again available for charter.