Warren Mitchell

{{short description|English actor (1926–2015)}}

{{about|the English actor|the U.S. college basketball coach|Warren Mitchell (basketball)}}

{{Use British English|date=January 2013}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Warren Mitchell

| image = Warren Mitchell.jpg

| caption = Mitchell in 1978

| birth_name = Warren Misell

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1926|1|14|df=y}}

| birth_place = Stoke Newington, London, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|11|14|1926|1|14|df=y}}

| death_place = Hampstead, London, England

| alma_mater = University College, Oxford
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

| notable_works = See below

| occupation = Actor

| years_active = 1951–2015

| spouse = {{marriage|Constance Wake|1951}}

| children = 3

}}

Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell;{{cite ODNB |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.110888|title=Mitchell, Warren (real name Warren Misell) (1926–2015) |year=2019 |last1=McFarlane |first1=Brian }} 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was an English actor best known for playing bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in television, film and stage productions from the 1960s to the 1990s. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner.

In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes Educating Archie and Hancock's Half Hour. He also performed minor roles in several films. In the 1960s, he rose to prominence in the role of Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (1965–75), created by Johnny Speight, which won him a Best TV Actor BAFTA in 1967. He reprised the role in the television sequels Till Death... (ATV, 1981) and In Sickness and in Health (BBC, 1985–92), and in the films Till Death Us Do Part (1969) and The Alf Garnett Saga (1972).

Mitchell's other film appearances include Three Crooked Men (1958), Carry On Cleo (1964), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965), The Assassination Bureau (1969) and Norman Loves Rose (1982). He held both British and Australian citizenship[http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1052464.htm Warren Mitchell is a winner] ABC TV 7.30 Report interview with Kerry O'Brien, 24 February 2004 and enjoyed considerable success in stage performances in both countries, winning Olivier Awards in 1979 for Death of a Salesman and in 2004 for The Price.

Early life

Mitchell was born and raised in Stoke Newington, London. His father was a glass and china merchant. His family were Russian Jews{{cite news| title =Variety Club – Jewish Chronicle colour supplement "350 years"| pages=28–29| newspaper =The Jewish Chronicle| date =15 December 2006 }} (originally called "Misell").Davis, Barry. "From the BBC with Love", The International Jerusalem Post, 2–8 January 2015, pg. 10.

Mitchell was interested in acting from an early age and attended Gladys Gordon's Academy of Dramatic Arts in Walthamstow from the age of seven. He did well at Southgate County School (which became Minchenden School),[http://www.southgatecountyschool.co.uk/pupils.php Southgate School notable pupils: Warren Misell] Retrieved 14 November 2015 a state grammar school at Palmers Green, North London. He then studied physical chemistry at University College, Oxford, as a Royal Air Force cadet student{{Cite web|url=https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/news/rip-warren-mitchell/|title=RIP Warren Mitchell|website=University College Oxford}} on a six-month university short course which the armed services sponsored for potential officers.{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/14/warren-mitchell|title=Warren Mitchell obituary|date=14 November 2015|website=The Guardian}} There he met his contemporary, Richard Burton, and together they joined the RAF in October 1944.{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/662833444215017/UzpfSTEwMDg2NTA5Njk1MzE5Njo4NjAxMTY2NDc2OTQ3MDA/|title=Log In |website=facebook.com}} He completed his navigator training in Canada just as the Second World War ended.[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/465537/index.html BFI screen online biography] accessed 27 June 2007

Career

Richard Burton's description of the acting profession had convinced him that it would be better than completing his chemistry degree and so Mitchell attended RADA for two years, performing in the evening with London's Unity Theatre.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}} After a short stint as a DJ on Radio Luxembourg, in 1951, Mitchell became a versatile professional actor with straight and comedy roles on stage, radio, film and television. His first broadcast was as a regular on the radio show Educating Archie, and this led to appearances in both the radio and television versions of Hancock's Half Hour.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

By the late 1950s, Mitchell regularly appeared on television. These roles included Sean Connery's trainer in boxing drama Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957), with Charlie Drake in the sitcom Drake's Progress (BBC, 1957) and a title role in Three 'Tough' Guys (ITV, 1957), in which he played a bungling criminal. He also appeared in several episodes of Armchair Theatre. During the first of these, Underground (1958), one of the lead actors died during the live performance.Sweet, Matthew. [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/do-not-adjust-your-set-by-kate-dunn-587580.html "Do Not Adjust Your Set By Kate Dunn"]{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, The Independent, 20 July 2003 He also had roles in The Avengers in addition to many ITC drama series including: William Tell, The Four Just Men, Sir Francis Drake, Danger Man and as a recurrent guest in The Saint, as in the second episode of the first season, "The Latin Touch" in 1962, depicting an Italian taxi driver.

Mitchell's cinema début was in Guy Hamilton's Manuela (1957), and he began a career of minor roles as sinister foreign agents, assisted by his premature baldness and facility with Eastern European accents. He appeared in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), the Hammer horror The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), Carry On Cleo (1964), Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? (Gerry Levy, 1964), and Help! (Richard Lester, 1965) and played leads in All the Way Up (James MacTaggart, 1970), The Chain (Jack Gold, 1984), The Dunera Boys (Ben Lewin, 1985) and Foreign Body (Ronald Neame, 1986).

In 1965, Mitchell was cast in the role for which he became best known, as the Conservative-voting, bigoted cockney West Ham United supporter Alf Garnett in a play for the BBC Comedy Playhouse series, broadcast on 22 July 1965. This was the pilot edition of the long-running series Till Death Us Do Part, with Gretchen Franklin, Una Stubbs and Anthony Booth. The part of Mum, played by Franklin, was recast with Dandy Nichols in the role when the programme was commissioned as a series.{{cite news | url = http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/alf-garnett-star-warren-mitchell-dies-20151116-gkznqc.html |title= Alf Garnett star Warren Mitchell dies | newspaper = The Sydney Morning Herald | date = 16 November 2015 | access-date = 17 November 2015 | first = Chris | last = Moncrieff }} Mitchell's real life persona was different from Alf Garnett, being Jewish, Labour-voting and a staunch supporter of Tottenham Hotspur. The show ran from 1966 to 1975, in seven series, making a total of 53 30-minute episodes. While the series aimed to satirise racism, it actually also gained the support of many bigoted racists who perceived Alf as "the voice of reason".Clark, Anthony. [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/465503/index.html Till Death Us Do Part (1966–75)] accessed 11 April 2016

Mitchell reprised the role of Alf Garnett in the films Till Death Us Do Part (1969) and The Alf Garnett Saga (1972), in the ATV series Till Death... (1981), and in the BBC series In Sickness and in Health (1985–92). He also reprised his role as Alf Garnett in 1983 in the television series The Main Attraction where comedians recreated their famous acts from their past in front of a live and television audience (similar to An Audience with... that began in 1976). In 1997 he played the role in An Audience with Alf Garnett. The same year, ITV aired a series of mini-episodes called A Word With Alf, featuring Alf and his friends. All the TV shows and both films were written by Johnny Speight. When Speight died in 1998, the character of Alf Garnett was retired at Mitchell's request.

Mitchell had a long and distinguished career on stage and television. Other small screen roles included a 13-episode series, Men of Affairs with Brian Rix (ITV, 1973–74), based on the West End hit farce Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! There were also performances in 1975 in Play for Today (showing that he could play a serious character role in the episode, Moss[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073408/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_45 Play for Today: Moss] at IMDb), as William Wardle, a crooked accountant in The Sweeney episode Big Spender (Thames Television for ITV, 1978), Lovejoy (BBC), Waking the Dead (BBC), Kavanagh QC (Central Television for ITV, he played a concentration camp survivor in the episode Ancient History),[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0618988/fullcredits#cast "Kavanagh QC" Ancient History (1997)] at IMDb website. Retrieved 13 June 2012 as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (BBC, 1980) and Gormenghast (BBC, 2000). In 1991 he starred as Ivan Fox, a Jewish atheist from London living in Belfast in So You Think You've Got Troubles, a BBC One comedy series written by Maurice Gran and Laurence Marks.{{Cite web |date=17 November 2015 |title=So You Think You've Got Troubles, 1991 |url=https://www.britishclassiccomedy.co.uk/so-you-think-youve-got-troubles-1991 |access-date=13 August 2021 |website=British Classic Comedy}}

In 2001, Mitchell appeared in a Christmas Special episode of Last of the Summer Wine, "Potts in Pole Position".{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Mitchell was a subject of the television programme This Is Your Life in 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.

On stage, Mitchell received extensive critical acclaim for his performances as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the National Theatre directed by Michael Rudman (1979, being originally cast in the role by Stephen Barry at the Playhouse in Perth, Australia);[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/04/1075853912687.html "A man of many cantankerous parts"], The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 February 2004. Accessed 11 April 2016. Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at the National Theatre; Pinter's The Homecoming at London's Comedy Theatre (1991) and Miller's The Price at the Apollo Theatre in 2003.{{cite web | url = https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/14/warren-mitchell-there-was-more-to-the-versatile-actor-than-cockney-foghorn-chairman-alf | title = Warren Mitchell: there was more to him than Cockney foghorn Chairman Alf | first = Mark | last = Lawson | date = 14 November 2015 | access-date= 17 November 2015 | work = The Guardian }}{{cite news|author=Brockes, Emma |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/sep/10/theatre.television |title=Emma Brockes talks to Warren Mitchell |work=The Guardian |date=10 September 2003 |access-date=17 November 2015}}{{cite web|url=http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/theprice-rev |title=Theatre review: The Price at Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue |publisher=Britishtheatreguide.info |author= Fisher, Philip|access-date=17 November 2015}}

Mitchell had a number of musical roles in his lengthy career, beginning with the role of Theophile in the original London production of Can-Can and the small role of Crookfinger Jake in The Threepenny Opera. He also sang briefly in the film Till Death Do Us Part and played Alfred Doolittle on the studio album of My Fair Lady, Music Hall Songs, songs of the First World War, and other recordings such as The Writing's on the Wall, from 1967, on CBS, all in the Alf Garnett persona, were released in LP and 45 rpm single form, too, in Britain and Australia.

In 2008, at the age of 82, Mitchell was performing alongside Ross Gardiner at the Trafalgar Studios, in London's West End, as a retired dry-cleaner in Jeff Baron's portrait of Jewish-American life Visiting Mr. Green.{{cite web|author=Bowie-Sell, Daisy |url=http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/actor-warren-mitchell-dies_39147.html |title=Actor Warren Mitchell dies |publisher=WhatsOnStage.com |date=14 November 2015 |access-date=17 November 2015}}

Awards

In 1976, Mitchell's one-man show The Thoughts of Chairman Alf won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for best comedy in London's West End.Keenan, Catherine "[http://www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/Whats-it-all-about-Alfie/2005/01/20/1106110868423.html What's it all about, Alfie?]", Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 2005 In 1982, he received an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor in the film Norman Loves Rose.[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084419/awards Awards for Norman Loves Rose (1982)] at The Internet Movie Database He received two Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards: for playing Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (National Theatre, 1979) and as best supporting actor in a 2003 performance of The Price, also by Miller. His role in Death of a Salesman also won him an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor and was highly praised by Peter Hall. Miller reportedly described Mitchell's performance as "one of the best interpretations of the part he had ever seen."

class="wikitable"
Year

!Award

!Category

!Work

!Result

!Ref.

1967

|BAFTA TV Award

|Best Actor

|Till Death Us Do Part

|{{won}}

|{{Cite web |title=Actor |url=https://www.bafta.org/awards/television/actor-television |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Bafta |language=en}}

rowspan=2|1979

|Olivier Award

|Actor of the Year in a Revival

|rowspan=2|Death of a Salesman

|{{won}}

|{{Cite web |title=Olivier Winners 1979 |url=https://officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/winners/olivier-winners-1979/ |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Olivier Awards |language=en-GB}}

Evening Standard Theatre Awards{{Cite web|title=Evening Standard theatre awards: 1955–1979 |url= https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/evening-standard-theatre-awards-19551979-7236386.html|date=10 April 2012|work=standard.co.uk}}

|Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor

|{{won}}

|

1981

|Olivier Award

|Actor of the Year in a Revival

|The Caretaker

|{{nom}}

|{{Cite web |title=Olivier Winners 1981 |url=https://officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/winners/olivier-winners-1981/ |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Olivier Awards |language=en-GB}}

1982

|AACTA Award (AFI)

|Best Supporting Actor

|Norman Loves Rose

|{{won}}

|

1991

| rowspan="2" |Olivier Award

|Actor of the Year

|The Homecoming

| {{nom}}

|{{Cite web |title=Olivier Winners 1991 |url=https://officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/winners/olivier-winners-1991/ |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Olivier Awards |language=en-GB}}

2004

|Best Performance in a Supporting Role

|The Price

|{{won}}

|{{Cite web |title=Olivier Winners 2004 |url=https://officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/winners/olivier-winners-2004/ |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Olivier Awards |language=en-GB}}

Personal life and death

Mitchell described himself in an interview as an atheist, but also stated that he "enjoy[ed] being Jewish".{{cite web |last=Deveney |first=Catherine |title=The pride of prejudice |access-date=20 July 2007 |work=Scotland on Sunday |url=http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/features/The-pride-of-prejudice.2570786.jp |date=10 October 2007 |archive-date=11 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311002944/http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/features/The-pride-of-prejudice.2570786.jp |url-status=dead }} He was a patron of the British Humanist Association.[https://humanism.org.uk/about/our-people/patrons/warren-mitchell/ "Warren Mitchell"], British Humanist Association website In 1951, he married Constance Wake,BMD Register – General Register Office. Warren Missel / Constance M Wake 2nd quarter 1951, St Pancras Middlesex. Volume 2 Page 776. an actress who appeared in early 1960s television dramas such as Maigret. They had three children{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27046865 |title=Warren Mitchell obituary: Alf Garnett and much more |work=BBC News |date=14 November 2015 |access-date=14 November 2015}}{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11995843/Warren-Mitchell-Alf-Garnett-actor-dies-aged-89.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11995843/Warren-Mitchell-Alf-Garnett-actor-dies-aged-89.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Warren Mitchell, Alf Garnett actor, dies aged 89 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |date=14 November 2015 |access-date=14 November 2015}}{{cbignore}}

For over 20 years, Mitchell suffered pain from nerve damage, caused by transverse myelitis, and was a supporter of the Neuropathy Trust.{{cite web|last=Curtis|first=Keryn|url=https://www.agedcare101.com.au/the-donaldson-sisters/learning-from-the-death-of-alf-garnett/|title=Learning from the death of 'Alf Garnett'|website=agedcare101|date=4 March 2016|access-date=28 November 2021}}[http://www.neurocentre.com/gallery-1.php Neuropathy Trust] accessed 27 June 2007 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070129033853/http://www.neurocentre.com/gallery-1.php |date=29 January 2007 }} He suffered a mild stroke in August 2004. He was back on stage a week later, reprising his lauded role as a cantankerous old Jew in Arthur Miller's The Price.Keenan, Catherine [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/20/1106110868423.html "What's it all about, Alfie?"], The Sydney Morning Herald, Arts section, 21 January 2005.

In sharp contrast to his signature Alf Garnett character, who was a staunch Conservative, Mitchell was a socialist and Labour Party supporter. He believed that the 2010 Labour Party leadership election had a lack of firebrands.{{Cite news |title=Debating Warren Mitchell's film |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10715644 |access-date=2023-06-14}}

Mitchell died aged 89, at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, on 14 November 2015, following a long illness.{{cite news |author=Thorpe, Vanessa |url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/14/warren-mitchell-dies-aged-89-alf-garnett |title=Warren Mitchell dies aged 89 |work=The Guardian |date=14 November 2015 |access-date=14 November 2015}}

Selected filmography

= Films =

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= Television =

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References

{{Reflist}}