“Those films haven’t made me rich, but they’ve given me a worldwide identity”.
Charles Hawtrey
Introduction
Described as an alcoholic and a recluse, a not-very-nice man offset, this actor was famously sacked from the Carry On film series in 1972 after being drunk on the set of Carry On Abroad. Yet this was not always the case. Charles Hawtrey dreamt of being the next Charlie Chaplin. An actor and director who studied at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London started life as a child actor. This boy soprano recorded several records and would move from radio to theatre and then films. A star of the Will Hay films and one of the longest-serving members of the Carry On team, appearing in 23 films, from Carry On Sergeant in 1958 to Carry On Abroad in 1972. Highly camp and unashamedly gay, Hawtrey was a joy to watch and brought an added spark to everything he worked on.
The Man Himself
Born George Frederick Joffre Hartree in Hounslow in 1914, he was the son of William and Alice. Someone who had the buzz for acting at a very early age. His first appearance on stage was at 11 when he appeared as a street arab in Frederick Bowyer’s fairy play The Windmill Man in Boscombe. It wasn’t long before George, who took his stage name from the theatrical knight Sir Charles Hawtrey, debuted on a London stage at 18 at the Scala Theatre in Bluebell in Fairyland. He would go on to appear in Peter Pan at the London Palladium in 1931, Bats in the Belfry at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1937, Taming of the Shrew at the Old Vic in 1939 and New Faces at the Comedy Theatre in 1940. During World War II, he appeared in plays such as Scoop, Old Chelsea, Merrie England, Frou-Frou, and Husbands Don’t Count. He also directed 19 plays, including Dumb Dora Discovers Tobacco at the Q Theatre in Richmond and Oflag 3, a play co-written with Douglas Bader in 1945. He was also a regular on the Children’s Hour radio and Just William. On television, he would appear in countless comedies including The Army Game, Our House and Best of Friends. He also appeared in a number of Carry On Christmas specials.
Yet Hawtrey’s major strength came in his film roles. Playing a blundering fool in the Will Hay films, Good Morning Boys (1937), Where’s That Fire (1939), The Ghost of St. Michael’s (1941) and The Goose Steps (1942). An actor who also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage in 1936 and the Ealing Comedy Passport to Pimlico in 1949. Charles is best known for his roles in the Carry On films. Poorly paid and quickly made, this saucy postcard look at British society in various guises was the true making of Hawtrey. Like his counterpart Kenneth Williams, Charles played a range of characters but they were always camp and wimpish. Forever wearing his trademark round glasses, Hawtrey loved a drink far too much but was welcomed into the bosom of the cast, often seen playing cards with Sid James in between filming smoking woodbines. An actor who hit the bottle harder when his mother Alice died in 1965. Gerald Thomas always made sure that Hawtrey appeared in a Carry On film at the optimum moment, creating surprise and instant risibility. An actor who always travelled by public transport to work and once refused to hug Barbara Windsor for a press interview, running out of the room and requesting another man replace him. Peter Rogers who controlled the franchise, refused to give any actor star billing and they were all paid a flat fee of £5000 per film.
After being sacked from the films in 1972, Charles moved to Deal in Kent. Perhaps because there was a naval base there, awash with sailors. Now considered difficult and impossible to deal with, his acting work was confined to radio, pantomime and summer season. An eccentric and hoarder who had a house full of brass bedsteads, believing that he would make a lot of money out of them one day. A continuous flirt who could pick up a man in any situation. Unlike Kenneth Williams, Hawtrey accepted his sexuality. In 1981 he suffered a heart attack but his last headline came in 1984 when he left a cigarette burning on the sofa and his house caught fire. Charles had gone to bed with a 15-year-old rent boy prior to the fire starting. He was saved by the fire brigade, snapped by the press partially clothed and toupeeless, rescued from a top floor window. Many of his antiques and valuables were destroyed in the fire.
In 1988, Charles collapsed at the Royal Hotel in Deal. He was rushed to the hospital where they found he was suffering from peripheral vascular disease, caused by years of smoking. He was told that he would have to have both legs amputated to survive. He refused, preferring to die with his boots on. Dying at the Windthorpe Nursing Home in Walmer in 1988, he famously threw a vase at one of the nurses when she asked for his autograph. Only nine mourners attended his cremation at Mortlake Crematorium and his ashes were scattered there.
