FOR BETTER or worse, the Carry On series defines film comedy in postwar Britain, and one of the franchise’s most enduring images is, of course, Charles Hawtrey.
This weedy, bespectacled fellow, a strange mixture of child and little old man who already looked ancient by the time he appeared onscreen with Will Hay in the 1930s. For Hawtrey the clock seemed to stop, allowing him to play exactly the same type of character for the next 50 years. His earlier work alongside Hay – and before that Charles Laughton and Errol Flynn – remains almost unknown. To us he will always be that strangely asexual, slightly camp nerd who graced 23 out of the 29 Carry-Ons made between 1958 and 1992.
A welcome new biography of Hawtree, WhatHisName, the Life and Death of Charles Hawtrey, by former Radio 1 DJ Wes Butters, casts new light on Hawtrey’s early life, his numerous insecurities and neuroses during his heyday, and his embittered, alcoholic final decline.
Hawtrey was born George Hartree in West London, in 1914, the son of William Hartree, a motor mechanic. He was a child actor, a boy soprano good enough to release records, and an early graduate of Italia Conti’s stage school. He soon took the name we now know him by after Sir Charles Hawtrey, a celebrated stage actor , comedian, director and producer who was knighted by King George V in 1922 and was well known in London theatre circles at the time. For the rest of his life he encouraged the myth that the real Hawtrey was his father, although he did claim in private that the deception was Ms. Conti’s idea.
The newly-minted Charles Hawtrey enjoyed considerable early success on stage and film, and even made several notable recordings as a famed Boy Sorprano. But his early work alongside the likes of Laughton and Flynn – and even a brief appearance in the Hitchcock classic Sabotage – rather colored his disdain for his later employment. As the years progressed he grew more concerned that his career had started at the top and gradually declined, and while some of his former co-stars were esconced in the pantheon of all-time greats, he was denied this sort of fame, reduced instead to vulgar cameos in second-rate Carry-On fare.
By the end of the Thirties he had already made more than 30 films, most of which have been lost to the ravages of time. However, his four films with Will Hay do survive, the most famous of which remains The Goose Steps Out.
After sitting out the war as a conscientous objector and entertaining the troops – usually in drag – Hawtrey came back to national attention as a regular in The Army Game in 1957, which led shortly thereafter to Carry On Sergeant, the first in the series which would provide regular employment – at £2,000 per film for six weeks shooting – for almost the rest of Hawtrey’s professional career.
One of the book’s best aspects is its insight into his psyche during this time. Before the success of the Army Game he would bombard BBC producers with what amounted to begging letters looking for work, imploring them not to forget him. And yet once regular work came again through the Carry-Ons he switched to an altogether more demanding mode, constantly pestering producer Peter Rogers for either more money or better billing.
After the death of his beloved mother and the slow realization that he would never get the fame and money he thought his due, things started to fall apart. Gradually his dedication to his work – for many years he was a model professional, if a little bizarre – slipped away as alcoholism and bitterness engulfed him. In the end he was little more than an embarrassment: showing up for shooting at 6am reeking of booze and Listerine; passing out blind drunk in pubs near his home in Deal, Kent; shouting at small children seeking his autograph and filling his home with various rent boys – one of whom almost burned the place to the ground after Hawtrey refused to pay for his services.
His last ten years or so were lonely, mad and blotto. ‘Hawtrey’s life wasn’t just bad,’ says Butters, ‘it was disastrous.’
The book, happily, is neither. Butters, who had previously written a biography of Kenneth Williams, is clearly a Carry On junkie. His work is thorough and carefully researched, and while the prose doesn’t quite fly off the page, there’s plenty to keep both the die-hard CarryOn-ista and the casual observer engrossed.
WhatHisName, the Life and Death of Charles Hawtree buy Wes Butters. Hardback, Tomahawk Press. ISBN: 13:978-0-9557670-7-4.
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