Patrick Cargill (3 June, 1918 – 23 May, 1996) was a British actor known for his role on the British television sitcom Father, Dear Father.

Career

Cargill was born to middle-class parents living in Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex.After education at Haileybury College, he made his debut in the Bexhill Amateur Theatrical Society. However, he aimed for a military career and was selected for training at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Cargill became a commissioned officer in the Indian Army.

The Stage

After World War II ended, Cargill returned to Britain to focus on a stage career, and joined Anthony Hawtrey's company at Buxton, Croydon, and later the Embassy Theatre at Swiss Cottage in London. He then became a supporting player in John Counsell's repertory at Windsor alongside Barbara Bruce and Beryl Reid and scored a huge hit in the revue The World's the Limit, which was watched by Her Majesty the Queen and 26 of her guests one evening. He made his first West End appearance in 1953 in Ian Carmichael's revue, High Spirits at the London Hippodrome. He also co-wrote the stage play Ring For Catty, with Jack Beale. The second of the Carry On films, Carry On Nurse produced in 1959 was based on this play.

After a number of other West End roles he landed that of Bernard in Boeing Boeing at the Apollo Theatre in 1962. The farce, which was almost tailor made for him, attracted major producers to him and he went on to star in Say Who You Are at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1965 and to direct Not Now Darling by Ray Cooney and John Chapman at the Strand Theatre in 1968.

Television

Cargill appeared several times with Tony Hancock, including the final BBC series of Hancock's Half-hour as the Doctor to Hancock's patient in the famous episode The Blood Donor(1961)^[1] In 1962, he played Herr Straffen in The Last Man Out, a tv series by Shaun Sutton. In 1967, he appeared in two episodes of The Prisoner as an unusually crude and brutal Number Two in "Hammer into Anvil" and as "Thorpe" in "Many Happy Returns".

Cargill starred in a series of adaptations of Feydeau farces, translated by Ned Sherrin and Caryl Brahms and entitled Ohh La La on BBC2 in 1968. These vignette Feydeau farces were originally intended to provide variety for Parisian audiences who were used to more than one production for an evening's entertainment. The third and final of the series titled Ooh La La! showcased Feydeau's longer pieces. The three series ran from 1968 until 1973.^[2]

In 1968, Cargill was cast in Father, Dear Father, which was written specifically for Cargill by ITV. Cast as Patrick Glover, a thriller writer and an inept father of two teenage daughters, played by Natasha Pyne (Anna) and Ann Holloway (Karen). The show ran until 1973 and showcased many other stars, such as Leslie Phillips, Ian Carmichael, Tony Britton, Jeremy Child, Joyce Carey, Ursula Howells, Terence Alexander, Donald Sinden, Eric Barker, Rodney Bewes, June Whitfield, Richard O'Sullivan, Bill Fraser, Dandy Nichols, Bill Pertwee, Peter Jones, Joan Sims, Richard Wattis, Jack Hulbert, Hugh Paddick, Roy Kinnear and Beryl Reid.

The series was produced and directed by William G. Stewart, later to be the presenter of Channel 4 quiz show Fifteen to One. Many of these stars appeared in an entertainment special starring Cargill, called Patrick Dear Patrick, An Evening with Patrick Cargill and His Guests. Cargill was a friend of Patrick Macnee's from their early acting days and, in fact, Macnee returned from California to make a guest appearance on the show. Apparently it included both Patricks singing Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Cargill's companion, Vernon Page, recounts that at the time of casting Cargill wanted to sing this duet with Sir Noel Coward and even visited him at the hotel in London where he was staying in an attempt to persuade him to appear, but Coward was either unwilling or unable to agree to the request and, indeed, he died 15 months later. This one-off special production by Thames Television also guest-starred Beryl Reid with whom Cargill sang the duet "I remember it well" by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Cargill even added the lines "We drank champagne" (Cargill's line) "You gave me Coke, you drank the wine yourself, you soak!" (Reid's riposte). Cargill made no further light entertainment shows of this genre.

In 1976, Cargill returned to the TV screens with The Many Wives of Patrick, playing a middle-aged playboy, Patrick Woodford, who is trying to divorce his sixth wife in order to remarry his first. This series again showcased many famous stars such as Patrick Macnee and Dawn Adams. The 1980s was something of a revival for Cargill's natural talent at farce. He co-starred in Key for Two with Moira Lister at the Vaudeville Theatre and then at the Old Vic Theatre in William Douglas-Home's After the Ball is Over. In 1986, he starred in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Chichester Festival Theatre, in which he played the part of Senex.

In his final years, Cargill was seen in Captain Beaky at The Playhouse in 1990 and after that he toured in Derek Nimmo's British Airways Playhouse. For the centenary staging of Charley's Aunt in 1992, Cargill played the part of the dreaded Spettigue.

Films

His film appearances included An Alligator Named Daisy and Express Bongo; two of the Carry On films: Carry On Regardless (1961) and Carry On Jack; Help! in which he co-starred with The Beatles and more notably Charlie Chaplin's A Countess from Hong Kong, in which he played the part of the butler, Hudson. With the exception of A Countess from Hong Kong, his performances were never acclaimed.

Music

A lesser known detail of Cargill's showbusiness career is the handful of recordings that he made in the 1960s and 1970s. The first was an album called Father, Dear Father made in 1969. Cargill sang a medley of songs and to this day the album can be found being traded on specialist sites. The female voice on the album was not Noel Dyson (Nanny) but that of June Hunt, a friend of Cargill.

He followed this with three singles. One called "Father, Dear Father Christmas" and another called "Thinking Young" and the final single called "Father, Dear Father." None of these recordings were commercially successful.

Personal life

From the mid 1960s Cargill lived at Sheen Gate Gardens near Richmond, Surrey. He spent his time 'resting' at Spring Cottage, his country retreat situated in Warren Lane, near Cross-in-Hand, East Sussex. For many years Cargill's companion was Vernon Page, an eccentric landscape gardener, poet and lampoon songwriter, until he married in 1984 with Cargill's blessing. Cargill was a private man, who quietly disliked his famous status. He would shun the awards ceremonies in favour of a quiet evening at home playing Mah Jong. He never made any public acknowledgment of his private life as he felt that to admit to being gay would damage his professional image. Notwithstanding his reluctance to come out in this respect, Cargill was happy being gay in his private life and his wit when not in the spotlight reflected that. Once, whilst lunching with Ray Cooney, the theatrical impresario, Cargill observed, when a particularly handsome waiter mistakenly removed his soup spoon Cargill responded, "aah look Ray, the dish has run away with the spoon." In the later years of his life, Cargill lived in Henley on Thames with his last companion, James Camille Markowski.

The love of his life was his Bentley, a black and dark green model of which only six were ever made. Cargill also had a Mini and often told a story about driving through Barnes one day and on seeing one of the other five Bentley Drop-Heads at the traffic lights, waved furiously at the driver, only to realise that he was driving his Mini that day. In the mid 1980s he changed the Bentley for a Rolls Royce.

Cargill had innumerable pets, including a monkey, a parrot, and a wethered sheep. His favourite pet was Ra, a cross-border collie and Charles, a cat that lived at Spring Cottage and often attacked Cargill's house guests in their beds early in the morning by attempting to suckle their nipples, much to the alarm of its victims.

Death

The year before Cargill died, he was knocked down by a car in Australia, which led to his cause of death being incorrectly reported as a hit and run accident. Suffering from a brain tumour, he was being nursed in a hospice in Richmond, London at the time of his death, age 77.^[3]

References

External links

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