Graham Stark
| Graham Stark | |
|---|---|
Graham Stark, c. early 1960s
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| Born |
Graham William Stark 20 January 1922 Wallasey, Cheshire, England, UK |
| Died | 29 October 2013 (aged 91) London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Comedian, actor, writer, director |
| Years active | 1939–1999 |
| Spouse(s) | Audrey Nicholson (1959–2013) (his death) (3 children) |
Graham William Stark (20 January 1922 – 29 October 2013) was an English comedian, actor, writer and director.
The son of a purser on transatlantic liners, Stark was born in New Brighton (part of Wallasey) in Wirral, Cheshire, England. He attended Wallasey Grammar School and made his professional stage debut aged 13 in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in London.
During the Second World War he served in 334 company of the BEF in Selonika,Greece where he was a turner in group workshops. While he first met Dick Emery, Tony Hancock and Peter Sellers, the latter two as fellow members of Ralph Reader's Gang Shows. Sellers would become a long-lasting close friend. With the Gang Shows, Stark toured the locations where military personnel were seeing active service. After the war he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and joined the regulars at Grafton's, a pub in Victoria run by Jimmy Grafton, a venue at which soon-to-be-prominent entertainers of the next few decades regularly gathered.
Stark began to work on BBC Radio in the postwar years, helped by Hancock's connections, making his debut in Happy Go Lucky and going on to Ray's A Laugh, thanks to the intervention of Sellers, For a time he was a regular in Educating Archie and substituted for Spike Milligan on The Goon Show when the comedian was ill. Stark was a regular supporting player on TV with Peter Sellers in A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred, and with Benny Hill. His profile was sufficient for him to gain his own, albeit short-lived, sketch series, The Graham Stark Show (BBC 1964). Now entirely lost, all the editions were scripted by Johnny Speight and each one featured a different group of supporting actors, including Deryck Guyler, Arthur Mullard, Derek Nimmo, Patricia Hayes and Warren Mitchell.
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