Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Sir Norman Wisdom

Actor-comedian

Born - 4 February 1915, London, England
Died - 4 October 2010

Diminutive star comedian who, after an isolated film appearance in A Date with a Dream (1948), soon formulated the persona that endeared him to millions, a little man with cloth cap, rumpled hair, wheedling tones and too-tight suits who tried too hard to become a success, frequently falling down stairs and leaving a trail of chaos in his wake. This was honed to perfection on TV, followed by a wildly successful return to films with Trouble in Store (1953), which provoked massive countrywide queues, and set Wisdom up at the Rank Organisation for a film a year, in which sentiment and song also played their part: One Good Turn (1954), at his most inventive in Man of the Moment (1955), Up in the World (1956), Just My Luck (1957), The Square Peg (1958), Follow a Star (1959), There Was a Crooked Man (1960), The Bulldog Breed (1961), On the Beat (1962), A Stitch in Time (1963) and more, in many of which he was assisted by invaluable straight men Jerry Desmonde and Edward Chapman. Later he won a BAFTA award for character acting, and there were a few more films, culminating in Five Children and It (2004), the short Expresso (2007) and Evil Calls (2008), his last. Knighted in 2000, he died following a series of strokes.