Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss [Inscribed photograph]

London [?]: c1960. Presumed First Edition, one of several impressions, perhaps uniquely inscribed. Photograph with autographs. The format is approximately 3.375 inches by 5.5 inches. Photograph of the two British Comedians with Jewel standing behind a seated Warriss. The Inscriptions read To Don Sincerely Jimmy Jewel (signed in the upper left corner) and Best Wishes to Don Ben Warriss on the lower right side. James Arthur Thomas Jewel Marsh (4 December 1909 – 3 December 1995), known professionally as Jimmy Jewel, was an English comedian and actor whose long career in stage, radio, television and film productions, included a 32-year partnership with his cousin Ben Warriss. Jewel and Ben Warriss were first cousins and were brought up in the same household, even being born in the same bed (a few months apart). Jewel worked as a solo act until 1934, then formed an enduring double act with Warriss, initially at the Palace Theatre, Newcastle. They toured Australia and America, as well as appearing in the 1946 Royal Variety Performance and five pantomimes for Howard & Wyndham Ltd at the Opera House, Blackpool, Lancashire. They had a major success with the BBC radio series Up the Pole, which began in October 1947 and cast them as proprietors of an Arctic trading post. Each episode included a musical interlude, sometimes provided by Julie Andrews, then a child performer. Only one episode is known to survive. The two men were also top of the bill in two London Palladium shows, Gangway (1942) and High Time (1946), and made regular television appearances in the 1950s and 1960s. The duo had the lead roles in the short-lived 1962 comedy series It's a Living. After splitting from Warriss in 1966, Jewel appeared in a Comedy Playhouse and two ITV Playhouse productions. He also played a murderous quick-change vaudeville artist in a 1968 episode of The Avengers. He then starred in the sitcom Nearest and Dearest with Hylda Baker, playing bickering brother-and-sister pickle factory owners Eli and Nellie Pledge. The show ran from 1968 to 1973, with a stage version appearing in 1970 and a film in 1972. While Nearest and Dearest was running, Jewel had a regular role in the short-lived 1969 sitcom Thicker than Water and made an appearance in the 1970 film The Man who Had Power Over Women. He then starred in the comedy series Spring and Autumn (1972–76) as retired railway worker Tommy Butler. He also developed a distinguished stage career, initially by playing the jaded tutor, Eddie Waters, in the controversial Trevor Griffiths play Comedians (1975–77). In addition, he starred in The Sunshine Boys (West End 1975), as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (Nottingham 1977), Alfred Doolittle in Pygmalion (Bromley 1980), and in You Can't Take It with You at the Royal National Theatre (1983). In the early 1980s, he made appearances in the children's series Worzel Gummidge (1980) and two episodes of Play For Today. He then starred in Funny Man, a 1981 series about a family music hall act, based by writer Adele Rose on that of Jewel's own father. In 1984, he played the part of a devoted green keeper in the Channel 4 comedy drama Arthur's Hallowed Ground (1984), then in 1986 he had a regular role in the BBC crime drama Hideaway. In the 1990s, then in his eighties, Jewel continued to make appearances in film and television. He appeared as Cannonball Lee, the boxing-loving grandfather of the Kray twins in the 1990 film The Krays, and as Michael Palin's father in American Friends (1991). On television he appeared in the 1990 ITV play Missing Persons (which was the pilot for the later BBC series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates), and also appeared in episodes of One Foot in the Grave (1990) and Casualty (1991). His final screen appearance was in a 1993 episode of Lovejoy.
In 1985 he won a Variety Club of Great Britain Special Award. Ben Holden Driver Warriss (29 May 1909 – 14 January 1993) was an English comedian and the first cousin of fellow comedy actor Jimmy Jewel. He first performed on the stage in 1930. Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss came together as professionals in 1934 at the Palace Theatre, Newcastle. Their double act achieved seven Royal Variety Performances, 12 Blackpool summer seasons, a successful radio series (Up the Pole) and a film of the series. Around 1966, the two went their separate ways, with Warriss performing on stage and Jewel moving into television. In the 1970s Warriss was the resident compere at the Cala Gran club in Fleetwood, Lancashire. In 1988 he played the Emperor of China in the first of the newly reopened Hackney Empire pantomimes, Aladdin. He was still performing in pantomime in his eighties. The character Parker from the 1960s TV series of Thunderbirds is said to have been based upon Warriss's appearance. Condition: Good.

Keywords: Jimmy Jewel, Ben Warriss, British Comedians, James Arthur Thomas Jewel Marsh, Ben Holden Driver Warriss, Actors, Performers, Motion Pictures, Theater

[Book #89233]

Price: $450.00