Harry Fowler
| Harry Fowler | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Henry James Fowler 10 December 1926 Lambeth, London, England |
| Died | 4 January 2012 (aged 85) |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1942–2004 |
| Spouse(s) |
Joan Dowling (1951–1954 died) Catherine Palmer (1960–2012, his death) |
Henry James "Harry" Fowler, MBE (10 December 1926 – 4 January 2012) was an English actor in film and television. Over a career lasting more than sixty years, he made nearly 200 appearances on screen.
Fowler was born in Lambeth, South London on 10 December 1926. As a “near illiterate newspaper boy” making eight shillings a week, he told film historian Brian McFarlane, he was invited on to radio to speak about his life in wartime London.
In 1951, Fowler married actress Joan Dowling, who committed suicide in 1954. In 1960, he married Catherine Palmer, who survived him.
Fowler died on 4 January 2012. He had no children.
Fowler made his on-screen debut as Ern in the 1942 film Those Kids from Town, a propaganda piece about wartime evacuee children from London. This role was given to him after film company executives heard him speaking on the radio about his experiences in wartime London. After a screen test at Elstree Studios, Fowler was given the part to star alongside George Cole. His fee was 2 guineas (42 shillings) a day, compared with the 8 shillings a week he had been earning as a newspaper boy up to his audition.
His early juvenile roles included Hue and Cry (1947), usually considered the first of the Ealing Comedies. Fowler later married Joan Dowling, one of his co-stars in the Ealing film. Dowling committed suicide in 1954, aged 26.
During the Second World War he had been an aircraftman in the RAF and played a cheerful cockney character with the same job in the film Angels One Five (1952), a portrayal he used in other contexts, often with a humorous slant, mostly especially during his year in The Army Game (1959–60) TV series.
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