| Will Hay (1888 - 1949) was a British comedian and actor.
He had a relatively brief screen career: by the time he made his first film he was in his mid-40s and an established music hall artist, and his last role came less than a decade later. But between 1934 and 1943 he was a profilic and popular film comedian. He was credited on several films as a writer or co-ordinator, and was arguably the dominant 'author' of all the films in which he appeared, in that they were built around his persona and depended on the character and routines he had developed over years on the stage.
He worked at Elstree, then Gainsborough, then Ealing; the Gainsborough period was the most consistently successful, particularly when he worked with the team of Marcel Varnel (director), Val Guest and Marriott Edgar (writers), and Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt (supporting cast) - as on the railway film Oh Mr Porter! (1937). Just as Tony Hancock, in some ways a descendant of Hay, would later cut himself off from sidekick Sid James, Hay felt impelled to break up the partnership with Moffatt and Marriott and was, likewise, never quite the same again, although The Goose Steps Out for Ealing (1943) was an effective anti-Nazi piece of slapstick.
Aside from his day job as a comedian, Hay was a dedicated and respected amateur astronomer.
Filmography-
Know Your Apples (1933) (A short and lost film)
Those Were The Days (1934)
Radio Parade of 1935 (1934)
Dandy Dick (1935)
Boys Will Be Boys (1935)
Windbag the Sailor (1936)
Where There's a Will (1936)
Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937)
Good Morning, Boys (1937)
Hey! Hey! USA! (1938)
Old Bones of the River (1938)
Ask A Policeman (1939)
Convict 99 (1939)
The Big Blockade (1940)
Where's That Fire? (1940)
The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941)
Go to Blazes (1942)
The Goose Steps Out (1942)
The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)
My Learned Friend (1943)
Various hard to find compilation DVD's are available here via eBay: |
