Kenneth Connor (6 June 1918 – 28 November 1993)[1] was a British stage, film and broadcasting actor, who rose to national prominence with his appearances in the Carry On films.
During the Second World War he served as an infantry gunner with the Middlesex Regiment, but continued acting by touring Italy and the Middle East with the Stars in Battledress concert party and ENSA. Earlier in the war, in 1941, he was apparently performing as a comedic entertainer in a concert party named the "Tam o Shanter's", as evidenced by a programme from the concert at the Summer Theatre at Felixstowe, dated Saturday 5 July 1941. The full cast autographed the programme, suggesting a final performance for the concert party, with Kenneth signing it "All the best Ken Connor". While waiting to be demobbed in Cairo, Connor received a telegram from William Devlin asking him to join the newly formed Bristol Old Vic, where he gained a solid grounding in the classics.[citation needed]
He took over from Peter Sellers in Ted Ray's radio show Ray's a Laugh, which was launched by the BBC in 1949 as a successor to Tommy Handley's ITMA. Connor played the brother-in-law, and other oddball characters such as Sidney Mincing. Ray took Connor with him to his TV shows, and the pair would star together in the third Carry On film, Carry On Teacher.
Connor gained a small role in the film The Ladykillers (1955) as a taxi driver. In 1958, he was cast in the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant, and became one of the regular cast in the series, appearing in seventeen of the original thirty films and many of the associated television productions. Alongside Kenneth Williams and Eric Barker, Connor was one of only three actors to appear in both the first and last of the original sequence of Carry On films (Carry On Sergeant and Carry On Emmannuelle).
In his earlier Carry On appearances, Connor frequently played the romantic lead or other sympathetic roles (typically with an element of comically neurotic anxiety), while later appearances saw him play less sympathetic characters such as married men with wandering eyes who made lascivious remarks. In Carry On Nurse (1959), his real-life son Jeremy appeared as his character Bernie Bishop's son. In 1961, he starred with fellow Carry On stars Sid James and Esma Cannon in the comedy film What a Carve Up! In fact, in the 1959–61 period, he was one of the most prominent leading men in British comedy films. As well as What a Carve Up! and the Carry On films, other films he starred in during this period included Watch Your Stern (1960), Nearly a Nasty Accident (1961) and the Dentist films. In 1960, he did the voices of the horse and dog in the Four Feather Falls puppet series.
Connor had a good tenor voice, which he occasionally used to good effect, such as in the 1962 movie Carry On Cruising.
Connor died of cancer at the age of 75 at his home in Harrow in Middlesex on 28 November 1993.[1][2] His body was cremated at Breakspear Crematorium in Ruislip, Greater London.
Personal life
Connor married Margaret Knox ("Miki") in 1942; his son, Jeremy, was a child actor.[3]
Television appearances
Year
Title
Role
Notes
1949
The Passionate Pilgrim
Murphy
1949
Oranges and Lemons
Musical review
1950
Over the Odds
Sydney
1950
Rush Job
Perce Prangle
1951
The Boy with a Cart
Demiwulf
1952
Winnie-the-Pooh
Rabbit
Episode: "In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day"
1952
It's a Small World
Narrator / Arfer
1952
The Sand Castle
Bert / Puffin / Shrimp
6 episodes
1952
Shadow Pictures
3 episodes: "The Grasshopper and the Ant", "Three Wishes", "The Sleeping Beauty"
1952
Huckleberry Finn
3 episodes: The Auction" (Levi Bell); "Jackson's Island" and "The Widow Douglas's" (Pap Finn)
