Occupation Comedy actor Name Graham Moffatt | Role Character actor Spouse Joyce Moffatt (m. ?–1965) | |
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Full Name Graham Victor Harold Moffatt Cause of death Myocardial infarction (heart attack) Died July 2, 1965, Bath, United Kingdom Movies Oh - Mr Porter!, Ask a Policeman, Where's That Fire?, Old Bones of the River, Convict 99 Similar People | ||
Graham Moffatt: Britain's Favourite Fat Boy
Graham Victor Harold Moffatt (6 December 1919 – 2 July 1965) was an English character actor and comedian who was most active in the 1930s and 1940s. He is best known for a number of films where he appeared with Will Hay and Moore Marriott as 'Albert': an insolent, overweight, overgrown-schoolboy type character, loosely reminiscent of Billy Bunter.
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Life and career
Born in Hammersmith, London, the son of Frederick Victor Moffatt (1896-1977) and Daisy Eleonora née Whiteside (1895-1969), both of whom outlived him. He was born on 6 December 1919, exactly 31 years after Will Hay whom Moffatt would become famous starring in movies with.
Moffatt had wanted to act from a young age. He had two sisters, one being Rita Doreen Moffatt (1936-1991) and the other living. He originally worked as a call boy at Shepherd's Bush Studios, and often saw actor Tom Walls going in and out of the sound stages. Walls took a liking to Moffatt, and chose him for a bit part in the 1934 film A Cup of Kindness. He then gave up his job as a call boy, and went on to appear in 5 more films in minor, mostly uncredited roles before getting his big break in Will Hay films.
His first film with Will Hay was Where There's a Will (1936) in which he plays an office boy. In his next film with Hay, Windbag the Sailor (1936), he is joined by Moore Marriott and his character has become 'Albert'. He is known by this name in all his later films with Hay and Marriott: Oh, Mr Porter! (1937), Old Bones of the River (1938), Ask a Policeman (1939) and Where's That Fire? (1940). Still as Albert, he appeared again with Moore Marriott in a series of films starring Arthur Askey: Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt (1940), I Thank You (1941), and Back Room Boy (1942).
His later films include Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I'm Going!, before he semi-retired from show business to become a publican with his wife Joyce Muriel (Hazeldine or Rider) whom he married in June 1948 and remained married to for 17 years until his death in July 1965. Together, they ran the Swan Inn at Braybrooke (near Market Harborough,) followed by The Englishcombe Inn at Bath. He was locally famous for shortchanging his customers. In March 1952 he had to be admitted to hospital in Kettering after two weeks of hiccuping. He still made occasional film appearances until his death from a heart attack in 1965 at the early age of 45. He made his last film appearance in the 1963 film 80,000 Suspects, directed by Val Guest, who was a writer of many of the films that Moffatt starred in with Will Hay and Moore Marriott. His ashes were scattered at sea.