James Beck
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Stanley James Carroll Beck (21 February 1929 – 6 August 1973) was an English actor who played the role of Private Walker, a cockney spiv, in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army from the show's beginning in 1968 until his sudden death in 1973.
James Beck | |
|---|---|
Beck as Private Walker in the Dad's Army episode "The Honourable Man" in 1973, just over a week before his collapse | |
| Born | Stanley James Carroll Beck 21 February 1929 |
| Died | 6 August 1973 (aged 44) Roehampton, London, England [2] |
| Resting place | Putney Vale Cemetery, London, England |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1961–1973 |
| Spouse | Kathleen Bullus (m. 1959) |
Early life
Beck was born on 21 February 1929 in Islington, North London, and attended Popham Road Primary School. His childhood was hard, with his father frequently unemployed and his mother making artificial flowers to provide a small income.
After attending Saint Martin's School of Art and doing his national service as a physical training instructor in the British Army, Beck became an actor. Prior to his broadcast roles he spent several seasons with the Unicorn Players [3] based in Paignton, Devon.
His early broadcast roles included Charlie Bell in an episode of Dr Finlay's Casebook (Series 1 episode 4, "Conduct Unbecoming", 1962), and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 1963, for which he gained positive reviews. He concentrated on television and was cast as a policeman in a 1965 episode of Coronation Street in a storyline concerning the collapse of a house and in a 1967 episode in a storyline concerning a train crash. He also appeared, uncredited, as a policeman in Gideon's Way (1965), and was often seen in TV drama, with one-off roles in series such as The Troubleshooters (1965, 1967, 1970) and the BBC's Sherlock Holmes with Peter Cushing in the lead ("The Blue Carbuncle", 1968).
In 1968, he was offered the role of Private Walker in Dad's Army, originally written by Jimmy Perry for himself. Perry approved of the casting of Beck: "He had the right mix of cheekiness and charm. He gave the role a bit of oomph."[4] While successful in the role, Beck yearned for the challenge of other roles.
Always in demand, he continued to work on TV programmes including A Family at War (1970) and Romany Jones (1972–73), in which he played the lead character of Bert Jones. He also recorded a pilot for an uncommissioned series called Bunclarke With an E (1973),[4] which was to be based on scripts originally written for Hancock's Half Hour and in which Arthur Lowe was also to appear.
Death
By 1973, Beck had recorded five series of Dad's Army and was working on the sixth, besides working on the radio series of the show. Location filming for series six was completed when Beck suddenly fell ill while opening a school fête[4] in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind. He returned home and within an hour was taken to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton[5] suffering from pancreatitis. He died three weeks later, due to a combination of heart failure, renal failure and pancreatitis, aged 44, and was cremated at Putney Vale Cemetery, where a tree was planted in his memory, with a marker bearing his name.
The last time Beck's Dad's Army co-stars saw him alive was on Friday 13 July 1973 at the Playhouse Theatre in London where he recorded two radio episodes of Dad's Army (which ran alongside the TV series). The following afternoon Beck suddenly became ill.
His death was a great shock to his fellow cast members, as well as to Jimmy Perry and David Croft. Perry has said that heavy drinking was common in show business at the time, and that he paid little attention to Beck's habit until "I saw Jimmy’s legs and they were purple. It was the last episode he appeared in before he died."[4]
In the sixth series, during the episode "Things that Go Bump in the Night", Walker is present only in the location scenes in the second half of the episode, as these were filmed weeks earlier than the studio scenes. In one of the videotaped sequences filmed after Beck's death, the platoon is aboard Corporal Jones's van when Captain Mainwaring tells Sergeant Wilson to "take Private Walker's name". Wilson writes the name "Walker" in the condensation on the window.
In the following episode, "The Recruit" (the series 6 finale), Mainwaring reads a note written by Walker apologising for his absence, as he has gone "up the Smoke" (to London) to conduct one of his deals. This was the last time the character was mentioned. In the radio adaptations of Dad's Army, Graham Stark stood in until Larry Martyn portrayed Walker in subsequent shows. John Bardon played Walker in the stage production in 1976.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | Star! | Drunken Soldier | Uncredited |
| 1970 | Groupie Girl | Brian | Released as I Am a Groupie in the United States |
| Carry On Loving | Mr Roxby | Scenes deleted from final film | |
| 1971 | Dad's Army | Private Walker | |
| A Couple of Beauties | Sidney | Short | |
| 1973 | Love Thy Neighbour | Cyril | Last regular film appearance |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Episode |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Dixon of Dock Green | Various | 6 episodes |
| Deadline Midnight | Ambulance man | 1 episode | |
| 1962 | Dr. Finlay's Casebook | Charlie Bell | Conduct Unbecoming |
| Z Cars | Constable | The Five Whistles | |
| 1964 | Taxi! | Len Gladwin | 5 episodes |
| 1964-67 | Coronation Street | Police Sergeant Bowden | 6 episodes |
| 1965 | Gideon's Way | Police Inspector | A Perfect Crime |
| 1966 | All Gas and Gaiters | Policeman | The Bishop Rides Again (pilot) |
| 1967 | The Troubleshooters | Dave Candy | Some Days You Just Can't Win |
| 1968 | The Blue Carbuncle | James Ryder | |
| Not in Front of the Children | Estate Agent | Home Chat | |
| 1968–73 | Dad's Army | Private Walker | 59 episodes (last appearance) |
| 1969 | Two in Clover | Dr. Molineux | |
| 1970 | Doctor in the House | Mr Wale | What Seems to Be the Trouble |
| 1972 | The Fenn Street Gang | Auctioneer | Horse of the Year |
| Scoop | Corker | 3 episodes | |
| My Wife Next Door | Mr Fielding | Undesirable Residence | |
| 1972–73 | Romany Jones | Bert Jones | 14 episodes |
Radio
| Year | Title | Role | Episode | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | The Events at Black Tor | Sergeant | 5 episodes | |
| 1970, 1971 | Brothers in Law | Fred Tanner, Newman | 2 episodes | Beck played Fred Tanner in the first series (1970), and Newman in the second series (1971). |
| 1971 | Hush, Hush, Here Comes the Bolshie Man | TBA | 1 episode | A pilot episode recorded for Comedy Parade 1971. |
| 1971, 1972 | The Motorway Men | Steve | 8 episodes + pilot | This program's pilot episode featured alongside Hush, Hush, Here Comes the Bolshie Man on Comedy Parade 1971. |
| 1973 | Dad's Army | Private Walker | 20 episodes |
References
- ^ GRO Register of Births: MAR 1929 1b 407 ISLINGTON - Stanley J. C. Beck, mmn = Beck
- ^ GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1973 5E 1087 WANDSWORTH - Stanley James C. Beck, DoB = 21 Feb 1929
- ^ The Stage, 1957
- ^ a b c d Clark, Neil (6 August 2013). "James Beck: the Dad's Army star cut off in his prime". The Telegraph. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
- ^ The Times, death notice and obituary, 7 August 1973
Further reading
- Pertwee, Bill (2009). Dad's Army: The Making of a Television Legend. Anova Books. pp. 56–59. ISBN 978-1-84486-105-7.
External links
- James Beck at IMDb
- James Beck at Find a Grave
- James Beck BFI