Alfred Marks
1921 - 1996Marks was born as Ruchel Kutchinsky in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged concerts for servicemen. He also worked as an auctioneer and engineer.
He started in variety at the Kilburn Empire in 1946, and his stage appearances included The Sunshine Boys and Fiddler On The Roof. He was also involved in comedy work with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe which later led to the formation (along with writer Spike Milligan) of The Goon Show, though Marks himself was not to become a member of that comedy group.
His films included The Frightened City and Scream and Scream Again. His television show, Alfred Marks Time, ran for 6 years on ITV. He compered Sunday Night at the London Palladium and appeared in numerous other television programmes including Albert and Victoria, The Good Old Days, Blankety Blank, The Marti Caine Show, The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game, Lovejoy, Minder (TV series), Parkinson, The All New Alexei Sayle Show and the Dramarama play The Comeuppance of Captain Katt (a satire on the current state of Doctor Who).
In 1967 Marks toured Australia for JC Williamson Theatres in Bill Naughton's Spring & Port Wine. In 1968 he played the lead in The Young Visiters a musical version of the turn of the 20th century Daisy Ashford novel, written when she was six and published as submitted by her with the spelling error, at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.
Marks also appeared in the role of Wilfred Shadbolt in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Yeomen of the Guard in 1982.
While on tour in Australia, Marks was appointed the second King of Moomba (1968) by the Melbourne Moomba festival committee; when asked what his qualifications were, he quipped (in full Cockney):
"When I was eleven there were rival gangs around a fruit market in the East End. And desperately, I always wanted to be a member of the bigger rival gang. One day when I was in my best Easter suit, someone from one of the other gangs said to me 'would you like to be King of the Golden Apples?' 'All right, just sit there on this box and call out Apples, Apples, give me the Golden Apples.' Which innocently I did and they cobbled me with every rotten apple in the market."
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Scramble
David Eady
Robin Askwith, Ian Ramsey
Jimmy Riley makes friends with Colin and Brian Buxton, both keen members of a schoolboys' scramble club. Lennie and Cliff, old friends of Jimmy's, steal wealthy Mr Hepplewhite's car. Jimmy finds the crooks with the car but will not join in with them.
Scramble
Antonia and Jane
Beeban Kidron
Imelda Staunton, Saskia Reeves
Plain Jane Hartman hates her life. She's goofy, boring and only has sex if she reads Iris Murdoch novels out loud to her loopy boyfriend. Her oldest friend Antonia McGill knows about everything. She orders the right food; she can complain and get results. She's beautiful and has a brilliant career. Is it any wonder that they hate each other's guts?
Antonia and Jane
The Yeomen Of The Guard
Anthony Besch, Dave Heather
Elizabeth Gale, Claire Powell
Colonel Fairfax has been falsely accused of sorcery by a jealous relative who covets his estates and money. The Colonel is condemned to death for his 'crime' and waits in the Tower of London for his execution. Fate, however, steps in - in the form of Sergeant Meryll (who owes his life to Colonel Fairfax) and Elsie Maynard, a beautiful strolling singer who has just arrived at the Tower to entertain the people in the company of a strolling jester, Jack Point.
The Yeomen of the Guard
Hide and Seek
David Eady
Peter Newby, Gary Kemp
A young boy runs away from an approved school to meet up with his father in the hope that he can persuade his dad to allow him to travel to Canada with him. He also meets up with two local children and discovers that his father is instead planning a bank heist.
Hide and Seek
There Was a Crooked Man
Stuart Burge
Norman Wisdom, Alfred Marks
When a law-abiding demolition expert is duped by a gang of criminals into helping them he is caught and jailed. When he is released he goes straight and then notices a leading citizen in his town is cheating his neighbours.
There Was a Crooked Man
The Frightened City
John Lemont
Herbert Lom, John Gregson
A small time thief is recruited by a mobster to help with the racketeering. He doesn't like the job, but with the mob on his back, a femme fatale in his bed and a sick friend to care for, he will have to keep all his wits about him.
The Frightened City
A Weekend with Lulu
John Paddy Carstairs
Leslie Phillips, Shirley Eaton
Fred, Tim and Deirdre plan a fun weekend break on the coast. What they didn't make allowances for was the company of Deirdre's mother who insists on coming along as her daughter's chaperone.
A Weekend with Lulu
Johnny, You're Wanted
Vernon Sewell
John Slater, Alfred Marks
Returning late to London, Johnny gives a lift to an attractive female hitch-hiker. Some distance on, he stops to make a phone call and buy a coffee, but on returning to his cab finds the woman gone. Assuming she has hitched another ride, he continues on his way. A short time later he is flagged down by another driver, who has come across a woman lying by the roadside. The woman is Johnny's hitchhiker and she's dead.
Johnny, You're Wanted
She'll Have to Go
Robert Asher
Bob Monkhouse, Alfred Marks
When Francis and Douglas Oberon learn that their late grandmother has bequeathed the family fortune to distant cousin Toni, they immediately start plotting to get their hands on the money. They dream up a plot whereby they cannot fail to acquire a comfortable future; the lovely Toni must either be murdered, or married...
She'll Have to Go
Our Miss Fred
Bob Kellett
Danny La Rue, Alfred Marks
Danny La Rue stars in this 1970s drag comedy as Fred Wimbush, a Shakespearean actor who is drafted into WWII and is appearing in a camp show in France when the Nazis advance. Unless he continues in his female costume, Fred is certain to be shot as a spy. The risque gags and double entendres fly as he attempts to make his escape in the company of a troupe of Girl Guides.
Our Miss Fred
Fanny Hill
Gerry O'Hara
Lisa Foster, Oliver Reed
Happily engaged to her handsome fiance, Charles, Fanny is soon hit with one misfortune after another until she is forced to become a prostitute to survive. This is the story, with many erotic asides, of her struggle to regain her pride in herself and find happiness in life once again.
Fanny Hill
