Oliver Wakefield

Oliver Wakefield (born 29 May 1909, Mahlabitini, Zululand, South Africa; d. 30 June 1956, New York, USA), was a popular British actor and comedian active from the 1930s until his death in 1956. Often billed as "The Voice of Inexperience", Wakefield is best known for his idiosyncratic satirical monologues.

Wakefield was educated in South Africa, then travelled to England, where he began acting with a Shakespearean repertory company. He then attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts for further study, where he developed his distinctive style of humorous monologue. Wakefield created the stage persona of a nervous upper class young man, customarily dressed in full dinner suit and habitually carrying a cigarette. He developed a distinctive stuttering mode of speech featuring tortuous syntax, malapropisms, spoonerisms, dropped words and unfinished sentences which he used to disguise his satirical observations, wry sarcasm and clever double entendres. In his early career he was clean-shaven but later grew a handlebar moustache.

He quickly established himself in nightclubs and music hall and became the first Resident Comedian on the BBC, as well as making pioneering appearances in the early days of British TV. He also became established in the United States and appeared in the variety movie short On the Air and Off (1933) (USA short, filmed at Biograph Studios, Bronx, New York City) (Universal Pictures) and made one of his first American stage appearances in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, which also featured Eve Arden.

Wakefield appeared in several British Pathé newsreels in the late 1930s. In 1937 he starred in the 20th Century Fox film There Was Young Man, followed by featured roles in several British films between 1938 and 1942 including The Peterville Diamond (1942), playing a gentleman jewel thief (whose partner-in-crime was played by future Doctor Who star William Hartnell). He made regular appearances at the Savoy Theatre, the Berkeley, the Ritz, Cafe de Paris, Churchill's and other leading London venues. He was booked to open at the Rainbow Room in New York three weeks after the outbreak of World War II, but chose to remain in England, where he served in the R.A.F.

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