Sid James

Sidney James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a South African-British actor and comedian whose career encompassed radio, television, stage and screen.

Noted for his distinct dirty laugh, he was best known for numerous roles in the Carry On film series.

Born to a middle-class Jewish family in South Africa, James started his career in his native country before finding his greatest success in the UK.

James was born Solomon Joel Cohen on 8 May 1913, to Jewish parents in South Africa, then a British dominion, later changing his name to Sidney Joel Cohen, and then Sidney James.

His family lived on Hancock Street in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.

He claimed various previous occupations, including diamond cutter, dance tutor and boxer, but in reality had trained and worked as a hairdresser.

It was at a hairdressing salon in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, that he met his first wife.

He married Berthe Sadie Delmont, known as Toots, on 12 August 1936 and they had a daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1937.

His father-in-law, Joseph Delmont, a Johannesburg businessman, bought a hairdressing salon for James, but within a year he announced that he wanted to become an actor and joined the Johannesburg Repertory Players.

Through this group, he gained work with the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Toots divorced him in 1940.

During the Second World War, he served as a lieutenant in the Union Defence Force Entertainment Unit in South Africa's army, and subsequently took up acting as a career.

He moved to the United Kingdom in December 1946, financed by his service gratuity.

Initially, he worked in repertory before being spotted for the nascent British post-war film industry.

Beginning his screen career playing bit parts in films from 1947, he was cast in numerous small and supporting roles into the 1950s.

James made his first credited film appearances in Night Beat and Black Memory in 1947, both crime dramas.

He played the alcoholic hero's barman in Powell and Pressburger's The Small Back Room in 1949.

He appeared in the film The Lavender Hill Mob in 1951, starring Alec Guinness.

The Lavender Hill Mob in 1951 was his first comedy film, ranked 17th out of the 100 best British films by the British Film Institute: with Alfie Bass, he made up the bullion robbery gang headed by Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway.

He also appeared in Lady Godiva Rides Again and The Galloping Major, both films were released in 1951, and as Harry Hawkins in The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953), and also had a lead role in The Wedding of Lilli Marlene.

His profile was raised as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour, first in the radio series and later when it was adapted for television and ran from 1954 to 1960.

Afterwards, he became known as a regular performer in the Carry On films, appearing in 19 films of the series, with the top billing roles in 17 (in the other two he was cast below Frankie Howerd).

His starring roles in television sitcoms continued.

He featured in another Alec Guinness film, Father Brown (US: The Detective, 1954) and in Trapeze (1956) as Harry the snake charmer, a circus film which was one of the most successful films of its year, and he played Master Henry in "Outlaw Money" (also 1956), an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

He had begun working with Tony Hancock in 1954, in his BBC Radio series Hancock's Half Hour.

Having seen him in The Lavender Hill Mob, it was the idea of Hancock's writers, Galton and Simpson, to cast James.

He played a character with his own name (but having the invented middle name Balmoral) who was a petty criminal and would usually manage to con Hancock in some way, although the character eventually ceased to be Hancock's adversary.

With the exception of James, the other regular cast members of the radio series were dropped when the series made the transition to television.

His part in the show now greatly increased and many viewers came to think of Hancock and James as a double act.

James had a supporting part as a TV advertisement producer in Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York, a non-comic supporting role as a journalist in the science-fiction film Quatermass 2, and he performed in Hell Drivers (all 1957), a film with Stanley Baker.

The next year, James starred with Miriam Karlin in East End, West End by Wolf Mankowitz, a half-hour comedy series for the ITV company Associated Rediffusion.

Set within the Jewish community of London's East End, the series of six episodes was transmitted in February and March 1958, but plans for further episodes were abandoned after a disappointing response.

For a while though, it had looked as if his commitment elsewhere might end his work with Tony Hancock, one of the most popular television comedians of the time.

Feeling the format had become exhausted, Hancock decided to end his professional relationship with James at the end of the sixth television series in 1960.

Although the two men remained friends, James was upset at his colleague's decision.

The experience led to a shift away from the kind of roles for which he had become best known.

He remained the lovable rogue but was keen to steer clear of criminal characters - in 1960 he turned down the part of Fagin in the original West End staging of Oliver! for that very reason.

Galton and Simpson continued to write for both James and Hancock for a while, and the Sidney Balmoral James character resurfaced in the Citizen James (1960–1962) series.

Sid James was now consistently taking the lead role in his television work.

He starred in the 1970s sitcom Bless This House until his death in 1976.