George Cole RIP

[poliphilo]

It's not always- or even usually- the "great" actors who do work that endures. Did Richard Burton (to pick an actor of the same generation who is generally acknowledged to be "great") create any character who is likely to live as long in the memory and affection of the public as George Cole's Arthur Daley? 

Comments

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

Richard Burton. He did...um...that thing. Very well, apparently.

But Arfur Daley? I am well acquainted with this very fine gentleman.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Burton had a nice voice- and threw it away on a lot of crummy films.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm always amused to recall Flash Harry from the St Trinian's films whom George played in his yoof- it was as though he was Arfur Daly in waiting all those years! :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Flash Harry must have had something to do with him being offered Arfur.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Comparisons are odious, but I can't help noticing how superfluous a character Del Boy (Delboy?) was after AD. He wouldn't have been half as interesting without Terry as his foil, of course - they were a great pairing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I watched Minder- and largely gave Fools and Horses a miss. I think Arthur and Terry are richer characters than
Del Boy and Rodney.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't heard. I'm very sorry to hear this, I've come to really love him over the past couple years. A friend of mine said Cole was one of those actors "who could always be a different character but was also somehow always himself." That sort of explains how naturally well he works in Cottage to Let, certainly one of the all time best and strangest child performances. A talent that followed him to adulthood.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Cottage to Let. I need to check it out.

He was a lovely actor.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

And I haven't seen Minder. I already thought Cole's career had remarkable scope going from remarkable child actor to an adult comic actor who's brilliant in several films, and now I see people identify him for being in a show that started airing nearly ten years after the newest movie I've seen him in which was a Hammer horror film of all things. That's an amazing career.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He did a lot of TV. I remember a blackish comedy that everyone else appears to have forgotten called Don't Forget to Write- in which he and Francis Matthews were rival playwrights. I liked it a lot.