TV: Co-wrote Christmas (70)
Born in London in 1915, screenwriter Sid Colin specialised in comedy for screen and radio, but upon leaving school pursued a musical career. He taught himself the banjo and joined a touring group, playing and singing around the country.
During the war, he served six years in The Squadronnaires, the RAF’s dance orchestra, playing guitar and writing shows, during which time he met Denis Norden and Frank Muir with whom he’d later work on numerous occasions.
After the war, he quit touring and began concentrating on his writing career, but not before he tried making a living as an artist. Colin painted, drew and sculpted all his life and eventually found work designing covers for sheet music. But his future lay in scriptwriting and he soon began writing for radio, film and, later, television.
Among his writing credits for radio are Life With the Lyons, while on television his output includes the series How Do You View?, Before Your Very Eyes, The Army Game and Love Thy Neighbour. His film work included One Good Turn, I Only Arsked!, and the Frankie Howerd films Up the Chastity Belt, Up Pompeii and Up the Front. One of his last screenplays was 1982’s The Boys in Blue. Also a lyricist, he penned songs for films such as Up the Front and Bottoms Up.
He died in 1989, aged seventy-four.
COLLEANO, GARRY
Role: Slim in Cowboy
Other screen credits include a 1960 episode of International Detective and the 1961 film Follow That Man.
COLLINGS, JEANNIE
Role: Private Edwards in England
Born in 1952, Liverpudlian Jeannie Collings started her career as a model for the Moroccan government. After gaining success in this field, she turned her attention to acting. Among her television credits are appearances on The Benny Hill Show, The Generation Game, The Golden Shot, Dixon of Dock Green and Armchair Theatre. In films she’s been seen in Emily, Confessions of a Window Cleaner, Percy’s Progress, I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight and Cruel Passion.
COLLINS, LAURA
Role: Nurse in Matron
COLLINS, MARIAN
Roles: Bride in Cruising, Bride in Cabby, Girl at Dirty Dick’s in Jack and Amazon Guard in Spying
On screen from the 1950s, Marian Collins was also seen in the television shows Dixon of Dock Green and Frankie Howerd, as well as films such as Behind the Headlines, The Desperate Man, Jungle Street and an uncredited role as Goldfinger’s girlfriend in the Bond movie, Goldfinger.
COLONEL, THE
Played by Wilfrid Hyde-White
From his own private room at the Haven Hospital, the Colonel drives the nurses mad in Nurse with his incessant demands. His good nature, though, is reciprocated and everyone bends over backwards to help, especially Mick, the ward orderly, who’s forever placing bets on the horses for the Colonel. The staff get their own back in the end, courtesy of a strategically placed daffodil!
COMMENTATOR
Played by Peter Cockburn
In Camping he commentates on the film, Nudist Paradise, which is shown at the Picture Playhouse.
COMMISSIONER
Played by Alan Gifford
Based in Washington, the Commissioner works in the Bureau of Internal Affairs. In Cowboy he’s first seen having a little fun with a woman in his office until interrupted by Perkins, his assistant. A former janitor at the law school Judge Burke, of Stodge City, attended, he responds to Burke’s request for a peace marshal but can’t find anyone to fill the position until Marshall P. Knutt walks in looking for a job. Assuming he’s actually a marshal when he’s actually a drainage, sanitation and garbage disposal engineer, he packs him off to Stodge City.
COMPANION
Played by Peter Jesson
One of seven companions originally seen in Cleo.
CONCORDE STEWARD
Played by James Fagan
Gets more than he bargained for when he attends to Emmannuelle ‘Straying Hands’ Prevert, the French Ambassador’s wife, during a London-bound flight on Concorde. Seen in Emmannuelle.
CONNOISSEURS DE LONDRES
The organisation holds a wine-tasting session at the Ruby Room in Regardless.
CONNOISSEUR
Played by David Lodge
Seen in Regardless, the Connoisseur attends the wine-tasting session at the Ruby Room organised for the Connoisseurs de Londres. He helps a drunk Lily Duveen, who was hired from Helping Hands to collect invitations, to her feet when she collapses on the floor, only to be accused of having straying hands.
CONNOR, JEREMY
Roles: Jeremy Bishop in Nurse, Willy in Constable, Footpad in Dick, Student with Ice-cream in Behind and Gunner Hiscocks in England
Son of Kenneth, Jeremy Connor was born in 1955 and made occasional screen appearances as an actor. He now lives in New Zealand.
CONNOR, KENNETH
Roles: Horace Strong in Sergeant, Bernie Bishop in Nurse, Gregory Adams in Teacher, Constable Charlie Constable in Constable, Sam Twist in Regardless, Dr Arthur Binn in Cruising, Ted Watson in Cabby, Hengist Pod in Cleo, Claude Chumley in Up the Jungle, Lord Hampton of Wick in Henry, Mr Tidey in Matron, Stanley Blunt in Abroad, Mayor Frederick Bumble in Girls, Constable in Dick, Major Leep in Behind, Captain S. Melly in England and Leyland in Emmannuelle
TV: Christmas (’70); Christmas (’72); What a Carry On!; Christmas (’73); The Prisoner of Spenda; The Baron Outlook; Orgy and Bess; One in the Eye for Harold; The Nine Old Cobblers; The Case of the Screaming Winkles; The Case of the Coughing Parrot; Under the Round Table; Short Knight, Long Daze; And in My Lady’s Chamber; Who Needs Kitchener? and Lamp Posts of the Empire
STAGE: London! and Laughing
A sublime piece of casting saw Kenneth Connor play Horace Strong, the hypochondriac who’s horrified to be passed fit for national service in Sergeant and set the tone for the diminutive actor’s Carry On career. If ever someone was required to play a dithering, nervous, angst-ridden little man, chances are Connor would be top of the list. He portrayed such characters with aplomb and quickly became an essential part of the gang.
Born in London in 1918, Kenneth Connor made his stage debut at the age of two and by the time he was eleven was performing various acts with his brother in revue shows. Deciding that he wanted to concentrate on becoming a ‘serious’ actor, he attended the Central School of Drama. Upon graduating his first professional job was as Boy David at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, in 1936.
He went on to act in numerous repertory theatres, later becoming a member of the Bristol Old Vic Company; although the outbreak of war in 1939, during which he served with the army’s Middlesex Regiment as a gunner, put a temporary halt to his career, he was for part of the time attached to George Black’s company, Stars in Battledress, touring the Mediterranean.
After demob he returned to acting in a West End play at the Strand Theatre and, before long, a role in the television soap, The Huggetts; but he made his name for the array of character voices he created on radio shows such as Just William and Ray’s