‘Blimey, Bernard’, said the petite blonde standing next to him – ‘Ow tall are you?’ Bernard Bresslaw towered over Barbara Windsor, his co-star in the latest Carry On film. Bernard stared down for a moment before his voice boomed out – ‘I’m 6ft 7″ Barbara – How about you?’ The blond actress giggled. ‘Bloomin’ Hell – I’m only 4ft 10″…
Bernard Bresslaw was born in Stepney on 25th February 1932, the youngest of three boys. His father was an East End tailor’s cutter, and like many families in the area, his mother was forced to take in sewing in order to help pay the bills. He was educated at the Coopers’ Company’s School in Tredegar Square in Bow where, thanks to encouragement from his English Teacher, he won two of the annual LCC awards to RADA. In 1953, he won the Emile Littler Award for the Most Promising Actor.
He began his acting career touring Army camps, prisons and hospitals, playing the lead in ‘The Hasty Heart’.
Bernard Bresslaw thought that his height would be a disadvantage in acting, but he was proven wrong when Laurence Olivier picked him for his first stage role as an Irish wrestler in ‘The MacRoary Whirl’ at the Duchess Theatre.
He did some work on the radio and TV in ‘Educating Archie’ and ‘The Army Game’ before landing a role in ‘Carry on Cowboy’ in 1965. Curiously, although officially credited with 14 starring roles in this immensely popular series of films, Bernard Bresslaw did actually appear in one other. As fellow actor Terence Longdon’s legs were deemed to be too skinny and scrawny looking for the scene in which Joan Sims gives him a bath, it is actually Bernard’s that appear in the final film!
Other TV roles followed, including a stint in 1967 where he was to play Varga, the lead villain in a Dr Who story called ‘The Ice Warriors’.
Bresslaw was also the author of a privately published volume of poetry ‘Ode to the Dead Sea Scrolls’
Bernard Bresslaw died of a sudden heart attack on 11th June 1993. He was about to play the part of Grumio in the New Shakespeare Company’s production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’
He had collapsed in his dressing room at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in North London where his ashes were buried on 17th June 1993.