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Stanley Holloway
Life Time
1 October 1890 - 30 January 1982
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British comedian Stanley Augustus Holloway was born on October 1, 1890 in London. He began his career in 1907 as an artist of the spoken genre, performing in the resorts of the East coast of England. A few years later he joined the company of his friend actor-comedian Leslie Henson. Initially dreaming of a career as an opera singer, he studied vocals in Milan until the First World War interrupted his creative endeavors. After serving in the infantry, Holloway returned to London after the war, where
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British comedian Stanley Augustus Holloway was born on October 1, 1890 in London. He began his career in 1907 as an artist of the spoken genre, performing in the resorts of the East coast of England. A few years later he joined the company of his friend actor-comedian Leslie Henson. Initially dreaming of a career as an opera singer, he studied vocals in Milan until the First World War interrupted his creative endeavors. After serving in the infantry, Holloway returned to London after the war, where he soon made his debut in one of the musical comedies in the West End. For several years he toured with various revues, performing with comic monologues and pantomime. He first gained some fame after the 1930 film adaptation of his stage show “Optimists”, in which the actor played from 1921 to 1927. In the thirties, Holloway only occasionally returned to cooperation with cinema, devoting the main time to the work of an actor-comedian. His first notable film work was as a police officer in Major Barbara (1941, Gabriel Pascal), based on the play of the same name by Bernard Shaw. Wide popularity came to him in the mid-40s, when he became one of the most recognizable character actors, starring with leading British directors of the time. Among the directors with whom Holloway had to work were his famous compatriots - Carol Reed ("The Way Forward", 1944), David Lin ("The Happy Tribe", 1944, "Short Encounters", 1945), Anthony Asquith ("The Way to the Stars", 1945) and also Alberto Cavalcanti ("Champagne Charlie", 1944, "Nicholas Nickleby", 1947), who worked then in the UK. Despite the fact that Holloway had almost no experience in Shakespeare’s plays, it was Lawrence Olivier who invited him to the role of a gravedigger in his adaptation of Hamlet in 1948. Later he starred in the comedies of the Ealing studio (in particular, Charles Crichton), and in 1964 he played Alfred Doolittle in the film My Fair Lady by American director John Cukor (based on the play by J. B. Shaw Pygmalion). This role earned him an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. In the seventies, already in old age, Holloway nevertheless continued to act in films and on television and perform on stage. His last film with his participation was the spy thriller Journey Inside Fear (1974), based on the book by the famous English detective writer Eric Embler. Shortly before his death, he published his autobiography, A Little Luck, in 1981. He died on January 30, 1982 in Littlehampton.