Peter Sallis, the actor best known for his roles in Wallace & Gromit and the long-running BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine, has died aged 96.
Sallis played Norman "Cleggy" Clegg in every episode of Last of the Summer Wine from 1973 until 2010, but reached an even greater audience as the voice of the jovial cheese-loving Wallace in the hit Aardman Animation films The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave.
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He started his working life in a bank
Sallis was born in 1921 in London and after school he felt pressured to follow his father into the business of banking. He took a position as a teller at a London branch of Barclays but the work didn't suit him. "I just didn't understand what banking was for," he said.
He discovered acting during the war
Sallis's life changed dramatically with the outbreak of World War II when, serving as a radio instructor for the RAF, he met theatre impresario Peter Bridge and was cast in an amateur production of Noel Coward's Hay Fever. After gaining roles in a series of RAF shows, he began to think of it as a career option and after he was demobbed, he won a scholarship for ex-servicemen to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in London.
He appeared on stage with Laurence Olivier
After graduating from drama school, Sallis spent three years in rep theatre before being cast in a series of prestigious West End productions, writes The Guardian. He appeared in opposite John Gielgud in Venice Preserv'd, in Orson Welles's stage version of Moby Dick, co-starred with Vivien Leigh in Look after Lulu and with Laurence Olivier in Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros.
He played a singing Dr Watson
Sallis gained his first role on Broadway in the John Osborne play Inadmissible Evidence and returned to the New York stage a few years later in the role of a singing Dr Watson in Baker Street, a musical version of the Sherlock Holmes stories, in 1965.
He was in Doctor Who
After focussing on theatre, Sallis began to appear in small TV roles from the late 1940s, with parts in children's television programmes followed by the role of Samuel Pepys in The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1959) and scientist Penley in the Doctor Who episode The Ice Warriors (1967). He also appeared in Tales of the Unexpected.
He appeared in Hammer Horror films
Sallis's stage acting tended to be highbrow, but his film career was less so and he appeared in a number of Hammer Horror Films. He played Don Enrique in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) and Sam Paxton in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970). He also appeared in Scream and Scream Again (1970) and The Haunting of Julia (1977).
He was a "devious" ladies man
Known for his self-effacing and meek persona, Sallis was once the subject of tabloid chatter over his infidelity, the Guardian reports. He married actor Elaine Usher in 1957 but they separated at least 16 times before she divorced him in 1965. A brief reconciliation followed in 1983 and then Usher left for good. Tabloid newspapers described Sallis as a "devious, serial adulterer" and he later admitted he was "not ideal as a husband".
He played Wallace for charity
In 1983, Sallis agreed to voice a character in a short film being made by animator Nick Park, then a film student, in exchange for a donation of £50 to his favourite charity. The final film, Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out, was released in 1989 and went on to be nominated for an Academy Award.
He suffered from partial blindness
In 2005, at the age of 84, Sallis's sight began to fail due to macular degeneration. Reluctant to retire, he used a talking portable typewriter with an illuminated scanner to allow him to learn his lines. He retired in 2010, after filming the final series of Last of the Summer Wine and his role in Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention.
He didn't like children
Sallis admitted he was not a great father and claimed he didn't like children. The Washington Post quotes a 2004 interview in which he confessed he was "not good father material". Sallis said he didn't understand children and "didn't actually like them". He added: "There was a distance between me and my father and now there was a distance between me and my son." Nevertheless his son Crispin followed in his footsteps and became a celebrated film set designer, with Oscar nomination for Aliens, Driving Miss Daisy and Gladiator.
