POW Celebrities.

Following up a bit off line with the Dad;s army thread, who were the POW celebrities?

Clive Dunn, Dad's Army, etc

Peter Butterworth 'Carry On Films'

Stratford John 'Z Cars'

Info please and others.

Regards,

Nick
KenFentonsWar.com

 

good day nick fenton,sm.yesterday.11:12pm.re:P.O.W. celebrities.we thank them all for not loosing there sence of humor under all the stress they put up with.god bless them all.may they rest in peace.regards bernard85

 

Donald Pleasence
(Escape from New York, The Great Escape etc....)

Royal Air Force, serving with 166 Bomber Command. His Avro Lancaster was shot down 31/08/44 and he was captured and placed
in Stalag Luft 1.

 

When you mention Clive Dunn you might note that he was in the 4th QOHussars. (My mob) but I never got to meet him.

Ron

 

Ron,

So l understand.

His ability to make himself look much older could have come into good use when they were looking for volunteers!

Regards,

Nick
KenFentonsWar.com

 

Pleasance's POW card

WO 416/291/510

Name: Donald [Henry] Pleasance [Pleasence].
Date of Birth: 5 October 1919.
Place of Birth: Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
Service: Royal Air Force.
Rank: Flying Officer.
Regiment/Unit/Squadron: [Number 166 Squadron].
Service Number: 157509.
Date of Capture: [unknown].
Theatre of Capture: [unknown].
Camp Name/Number: Stalag Luft 1 Barth.
PoW number: 5476.
Date of Death: [2 February 1995].
Number of Photographs: 0.
Number of Fingerprints: 0.
Number of X-rays: 0.
Number of Cards: 1.

 

Sam Kydd (Actor)

Sam Kydd - Wikipedia

WO 416/214/59

Name: Samuel [John] Kydd.

Date of Birth: 15/02/1915.

Place of Birth: Belfast.

Service: British Army.

Rank: Private.

Regiment/Unit/Squadron: The London Regiment.

Service Number: 6896304.

Date of Capture: 26 May 1940.

Theatre of Capture: Calais.

Camp Name/Number: Stalag XXA Thorn.

PoW number: 13745.

Date of Death: [26/3/1982].

Number of Photographs: 0.

Number of Fingerprints: 0.

Number of X-rays: 0.

Number of Cards: 3.





Kyle

 

Sonny Fox was a kid's TV show host in New York City. Watched him every weekend growing up.

Really good interview with him.



The Sonny Fox years[edit]

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Independent television network Metromedia (born from the former DuMont Network) hired Fox to host Wonderama on its New York flagship station, WABD (soon to become WNEW-TV), succeeding the team of Bill Britten and Doris Faye. Hiring Fox ended what some called the "musical-hosts syndrome" that Wonderama had for its first few years. Fox became Wonderama's sole host for eight years, until August 1967.

Suave, witty, and congenial, Fox juggled the slapstick and the serious, turning the marathon Wonderama (during Fox's tenure the show ran four hours Sunday mornings) into a weekly academy at which anything could happen and often did; whether Shakespearean dramatizations, guest celebrities, magic demonstrations (customarily by legendary magician James "The Amazing" Randi), art instruction, spelling bees, learning games, or other elements.[citation needed]

Fox was deft at turning a potential haphazard hodgepodge into a seamless whole, and he was consistent in never talking down to his young guests or viewers, treating them with legitimate respect and tolerance. The result was that Wonderama was rarely if ever known to have bored either the children who appeared on the show (the segments showing the weekly 25 or 30 children waving cross-armed, leading in and out of commercial breaks, were as much a signature as Fox himself) or those who watched it.

For a few years it seemed Fox owned children's weekend television in the New York metropolitan area. In the same year he joined Wonderama, he reached back to the "color war" team competitions he knew as a child in summer camp to create and host Just For Fun, a two-and-a-half hour Saturday morning show involving two teams of kids in blue and gold jumpsuits to compete in contests ranging from the mildly athletic to the wildly bizarre. One mainstay was the Treasure Chest competition where one contestant from each team would be placed in front of a locked chest and 1,000 keys. When the winner found the key to open his or her chest, a siren would sound, and whatever was happening at the time (be it cartoon, commercial, skit, or whatever else) was interrupted. The winner would stand with arms outstretched and a towering pile of board games and toys would be placed in his or her arms.

During this time, Fox made countless personal appearances throughout the New York metropolitan area. The Wonderama show was featured at the Hollywood Arena at the Freedomland U.S.A. theme park in The Bronx. Several shows at Freedomland were filmed and broadcast on the following Sunday mornings. Fox' memories about his appearances at the theme park are captured in Freedomland U.S.A.: The Definitive History (Theme Park Press, 2019).

Fox also hosted ABC's first original Saturday morning program, On Your Mark, a game show in which children ages 9 through 13 answered questions about various professions. On Your Mark lasted one season, but the lively Just For Fun lasted until 1965.

Fox has since become an Emmy award-winning producer of his Broadway Songwriters Series, has his own website, and has a "Wonderama with Sonny Fox" Facebook group hosted by Randy Bucknoff, who is both administrator of the group and of Fox's website.

Fox (at 90 years of age) met with President Obama in Washington, D.C. at a 2015 event in the Israeli Embassy.[2] He died on January 24, 2021, of COVID-19-related pneumonia, at the age of 95.[3]

 

What about poor old Percy Herbert, captured at Singapore, four years as a prisoner of the Japanese and then forced to spend most of his long acting career playing solid, dependable ORs, NCOs, and WOs in every British war film going.

 

Rupert Lisburn Gwynne "Pud" Davies, 812 Squadron well known for playing Maigret in 50 episodes during 60's flew with the Fleet Air Arm during the war and Fairey Swordfish L2819 shot down 22nd August 1940 off Schelde Estuary, Dutch Coast, captured and sent to Stalag Luft III, three escape attempts.


Name: Rupert [Lisburn Gwynne] Davies.
Date of Birth: 22/5/1916.
Place of Birth: Liverpool.
Service: Royal Navy.
Rank: Lieutenant.
Regiment/Unit/Squadron: [unspecified].
Service Number: [unspecified].
Date of Capture: [22 August 1940].
Theatre of Capture: [Schelde Estuary, Dutch Coast].
Camp Name/Number: Oflag IXA Spangenberg.
PoW number: 1244.
Date of Death: [22/11/1976].
Number of Photographs: 0.
Number of Fingerprints: 0.
Number of X-rays: 0.
Number of Cards: 1.

WO 416/90/107


How TV’s first Maigret fought the Nazis and learned his craft at Great Escape jail - Mirror Online

Incident Fairey Swordfish Mk I L2819, 22 Aug 1940

 

Including, ironically, Grogan, in The Bridge on the River Kwai.


One of the first films he was cast in was Bridge on the River Kwai which was based on the experiences in Changi prison camp. David Lean, the producer of the classic film, paid Herbert a stipend to be a consultant on the film as he had been a POW there and was also cast in the role of Grogan, one of the first roles in which he was cast during his long and varied acting career.

Percy Herbert (actor) - Wikipedia

 

When transcribing my dad's cousin's letters home from XXA and XXB I came across mention of a "famous" person I have never heard of - Gordon Roll.

From his letter
22/07/40 (Recvd 1st post Thursday 26/09/40).

To: Mr & Mrs Farnden

From: Stalag XXA (5)

Dear Mother & Father,

Here are a few interesting facts which I did not think of mentioning in previous letters. I was captured with two friends who were at Mrs Fletchers with me, but one of them went to another camp after a few weeks here. Gordon Roll was also captured about the same time as me, & came here, but has gone to another camp now.

Some info I found online:

NAME

Gordon Roll

CLAIM TO FAME

Bon viveur and darling of the tabloids

PROFILE

Although his name means nothing these days, for a time shortly before World War Two Gordon Roll regularly featured on the front pages of the national tabloids and his exploits were reported on daily. Along with his more circumspect brothers, Roll inherited almost half a million pounds, a vast sum at the time, and announced that he intended to make an even bigger fortune by gambling on horses.

The press took notice and Roll’s progress was closely followed. Perhaps inevitably, the occasional good day – he once won £20,000 in an afternoon at Windsor – were overshadowed by the many bad ones. His profligacy was not helped by a decision to buy a string of (rather slow) racehorses. By August 1939 the money was disappearing alarmingly quickly (it was estimated he was losing £10,000 a month) and so Roll sold his horses and told the press he was off to Hollywood, boasting: “I’m going to be the next Clark Gable.”

The war intervened and he rushed home to enlist, although the press interest continued and it was reported that “his chauffeur arrives at his barracks each evening and passed chilled champagne to him through the fence”. He was captured by the Germans in 1940 and spent the war as a POW, but was still in the spotlight. In 1941 newspapers as far a field as Australia reported that in a letter to a friend, Roll had said he had spent his captivity “devising a fool-proof scheme for making £120,000-a-year from gambling”. He continued to make headlines post-war as he squandered what remained of his fortune, inevitably on horses. With his money gone, the remainder of his life was far less eventful and far more private. “I know I’ve been a mug,’ he said, ‘but it was worth it for the fun.”

 

Talbot "Tolly" Rothwell, scriptwriter of most of the Carry on films, was in Luft III, with Peter Butterworth.

 

Peter Butterworth's POW Card

The Archivists’ Guide to Film: The Great Escape - The National Archives blog

 

Peter Butterworth
His son gives a very good description of his POW life and after.
Peter auditioned for a role in the film The Wooden Horse to play himself but didn't get it and was told he didn't look like a POW

https://www.abitofacarryon.co.uk/

 

The Daily Mail is so far behind they should have come here to read all about Peter Butterworth.
Carry On Escaping! Extraordinary story of how comic actor Peter Butterworth helped organise the famous Great Escape from Stalag Luft III and sent coded messages to British intelligence via his letters home is revealed for the first time | Daily Mail Online

 

Looks like the BBC is way behind too.
The Carry On star who helped The Great Escape - BBC News

 

Three from Stalag 383:

Percy Sekine ....... onetime RAF aircrew and Sensei, who represented GB in international judo tournaments four times in the 1940s and 1950s, inter alia,
giving the Daily Mail a bit of a chance ......
How British airman trained fellow PoWs in judo during WWII | Daily Mail Online
and remembering 778412 Sgt MC Fletcher and 1255582 Sgt LA Fox, two of his crewmates lost when he was shot down.

Sir Terry Frost RA (here, Royal Academy) who became a renowned abstract artist ...
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-terry-frost-1126
Terry Frost - Wikipedia

and fellow artist Adrian Heath, onetime RAF air gunner:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/adrian-heath-1260
Adrian Heath (painter) - Wikipedia

 

If you get a chance to go to his sons talks it is well worth going and he has even more info now to talk about

 

Not been around for a while so apologies if this has already been posted but two other shows were the direct result of RAF POW's.
Mastermind was based on an RAF NCO's experience being questioned by the Gestapo, under spot lights, no humour, straight to the point, etc
Michael Bertines Potty Time was based on an RAF officers flea circus. It is said that he heard about it as an RAF member after the war and thought up the series.
Regards,
Nick