The Stage

Ian Carmichael

Published Monday 22 February 2010 at 15:30 by Kevin Berry

PG Wodehouse called Ian Carmichael the definitive Bertie Wooster and praise does not come higher than that. Carmichael was also widely regarded as the absolute personification of Lord Peter Wimsey, the aristocratic amateur sleuth created by Dorothy L Sayers. It was a part he loved playing and he often said that he would rather like to have been Lord Peter.

Carmichael was born in Hull on June 18, 1920. The son of a prosperous jeweller and silversmith, he was educated at a Scarborough college and then at Bromsgrove School. Rather than go into the family business he determined on a career in music or theatre and eventually he won a place at RADA.

During war service he was stationed at Whitby, where he met his future wife Pym McLean. During their months of courting he also fell in love with the landscape around Whitby. They were married in 1942. His war service included landing in Normandy shortly after D-Day, being in the thick of the fighting around Caen and campaigning on through France and into Germany. In 1945 he was seconded to troop entertainment, where he met Richard Stone, the man who was to become his agent.

Carmichael enjoyed long runs in notable revues and in 1954 he became a star name in the fondly remembered romantic comedy Simon and Laura. Written by Alan Melville and produced by Hugh ‘Binkie’ Beaumont, it was eventually filmed with Carmichael being the only name to be included from the theatre cast.

Then the Boulting Brothers, Roy and John called his agent and said they wanted to make him a film star. Appearances in Privates on Parade, Brothers in Law, Lucky Jim and I’m All Right Jack established him as a household name. He enjoyed a 15-year run as a top box office attraction and at the height of his film career he was getting up to 600 fan letters every week.

Television came next with the Bertie Wooster and Peter Wimsey roles. Latterly, he played a Scottish laird in the BBC series Strathblair and in the final years of his life he appeared in Yorkshire TV’s long-running hospital-based drama The Royal. He had agreed to appear in The Royal because it was shot in Whitby, which is a four-mile drive from his home, but was then rather surprised to be filming interiors in studio units on the Bradford ring road.

There was a delightful radio series in the late seventies, the BAFTA-winning The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter. A gentle comedy written by Basil Boothroyd, it had Carmichael playing a crime writer married to a far more successful crime writer, played by Charlotte Mitchell. Carmichael’s Potter would muse on domestic life and troublesome plots from the safety of his writing hut at the bottom of the garden. It is regularly repeated on Radio 7 and remained a personal favourite with its producer Bobby Jaye.

Often unfairly labelled as an actor of “silly ass” parts, Carmichael would refer to the wider range of his work. He was a great admirer of Alan Ayckbourn’s plays and enjoyed nights at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.

Carmichael had a special kind of charm and he had time for everyone. He was a refreshingly modest man, content with his career and his achievements. Away from his professional life he loved cricket and was elected to the Lord’s Taverners, the cricketing charity, in 1957. He became the Taverners’ chairman in 1970, a post he held for two years. He was appointed OBE in the Birthday Honours List of 2003.

Carmichael died on February 5 at his family home in Grosmont, North Yorkshire. He was 89 and had been in failing health since early December. He had lived in Grosmont since 1976. His first wife died from cancer in 1983 when they had been married for 40 years. He is survived by his second wife, the novelist Kate Fenton and two daughters from his first marriage.