Warren Mitchell

This is about the English actor. For the U.S. college basketball coach, go to Warren Mitchell (basketball).

Warren Mitchell
Born	Warren Misel (1926-01-14) 14 January 1926 Stoke Newington, London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1951–present
Notable work	See below
Spouse	Constance Wake ​ (m. 1950)​
Children	3
Awards	Best Television Actor 1966: Till Death Us Do Part Best Actor in a Revival 1979: Death of a Salesman Best Performance in a Supporting Role 2004: The Price

Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misel, 14 January 1926) is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (1965–75), and its sequels Till Death... (ATV) (1981) and In Sickness and in Health (BBC) (1985–92), all of which were written by Johnny Speight. He holds both British and Australian citizenship and has enjoyed considerable success in stage performances in both countries.

Early life

Mitchell was born in Stoke Newington, London. His father was a glass and china merchant. He is of Russian Jewish descent, but describes himself in interviews as an atheist who sometimes believes in God. He was interested in acting from an early age, and attended the Gladys Gordon's Academy of Dramatic Arts in Walthamstow from the age of seven. He did well at school and read physical chemistry at University College, Oxford, for six months. There he met his contemporary Richard Burton, and together they joined the RAF in 1944. He completed his navigator training in Canada just as the war ended.

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 the Unity Theatre. 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 on Hancock's Half Hour. By the late fifties, he regularly appeared on television: as 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 in 1958 (Underground) one of the lead actors died during the live performance, and 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.

His cinema début came in 1957 in Guy Hamilton's Manuela, 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 (José Quintero, 1961), Carry On Cleo, 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, he was cast as 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 Gretchen Franklin, was taken by Dandy Nichols when the programme was commissioned as a series. Mitchell may be best known for his role as the bigoted cockney West Ham United F.C. supporter, Alf Garnett, but ironically, his real life persona is quite different, being a left-winger, Jewish, and a staunch supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. The show ran from 1966 to 1975, in seven series, making a total of 53 30-minute episodes.

He has a long and distinguished career on stage and television. Other small screen roles include performances in The Sweeney (Thames Television for ITV, 1978), Lovejoy (BBC), Waking the Dead (BBC), Kavanagh QC (Carlton Television for ITV), The Merchant of Venice (BBC, 1980) and Gormenghast. In 2001, he appeared in a Christmas Special episode of Last of the Summer Wine, "Potts in Pole Position".

On stage he received extensive critical acclaim for his performances in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at the National Theatre; and Pinter's The Homecoming and Miller's The Price in the West End, also appearing in Visiting Mr. Green in 2007 and 2008.

After the cancellation of the Alf Garnett sequel series In Sickness And In Health, Mitchell returned to the role of Alf on a number of occasions. ITV aired a series of mini episodes called A Word With Alf featuring Alf and his friends. When Johnny Speight died in 1998, the series was cancelled at Mitchell's request.

Awards

Mitchell was voted TV Actor of the Year in 1965 for his portrayal of Alf Garnett in Till Death Do Us Part. In 1976, his one-man show The Thoughts of Chairman Alf won the Evening Standard award for best comedy in London's West End. In 1982, he received an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor in the film Norman Loves Rose. He has received two Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards—for playing Willie 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.

Personal life

Mitchell is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He has been married since 1950 to Connie (Constance Wake), an actress who appeared in early 1960s television dramas such as Maigret. They have three children; Rebecca, Daniel (also an actor) and Anna (also known as Georgia Mitchell). For over twenty years, Mitchell has suffered pain from nerve damage, caused by Transverse myelitis, and is a supporter of the Neuropathy Trust. He suffered a mild stroke in August 2004.

Selected filmography

• Manuela (1957)
• The Crawling Eye (1958)
• Girls at Sea (1958)
• Two-Way Stretch (1960)
• Hell Is a City (1960)
• The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960)
• Surprise Package (1960)
• The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960)
• The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
• Postman's Knock (1962)
• Carry on Cleo (1964)
• The Intelligence Men (1965)
• San Ferry Ann (1965)
• Promise Her Anything (1965)
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
• Night Caller from Outer Space (1965)
• The Sandwich Man (1966)
• Drop Dead Darling (1966)
• The Assassination Bureau (1969)
• Till Death Us Do Part (1969)
• What Changed Charley Farthing? (1974)
• Jabberwocky (1977)
• Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers (1977)
• Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979)
• The Plague Dogs (1982)
• Norman Loves Rose (1982)
• The Chain (1984)
• Knights and Emeralds (1985)
• Foreign Body (1986)
• Crackers (1998)

External links

• Warren Mitchell at IMDb
• Screenonline: Warren Mitchell
• TimeOut: Warren Mitchell