Roland Pertwee (15 May 1885[3] – 26 April 1963)[4] was an English playwright, film and television screenwriter, director and actor. He was the father ofDoctor Who actorJon Pertwee and playwright and screenwriterMichael Pertwee.[5] He was also the second cousin of actorBill Pertwee and grandfather of actorsSean Pertwee and Dariel Pertwee.
From the 1910s to 1950s, he worked as a writer on many British films, providing either the basic story or full screenplay. He was one of many writers who worked on the script ofA Yank at Oxford starringRobert Taylor andVivien Leigh, the film in which his son Jon made his screen debut, and onCaravan.[6]
While he seemingly preferred writing, he acted in ten films (1915–45) and directedBreach of Promise (1942), which he also wrote.
Pertwee hadFrench Huguenot ancestry (his surname was an Anglicisation of "Perthuis"; the origins of his surname being "de Perthuis de Laillevault", the family being Counts descended fromCharlemagne).[7][8] His career began as a painter after he gained a scholarship to theRoyal Academy Schools at the age of 17 and exhibited his first portrait at theRoyal Academy two years later. He studied in Paris, then returned to London, where he began to write and act.[9]
Pertwee married in 1911, and he and his wife went to Australia for a year, while Pertwee appeared on stage with a touring company. The couple had two children.[10] He worked as a musician and as an actor.[11][12]
His writing career essentially began in 1914, when four of his short plays, includingSwank, were produced in London.[13][14] Pertwee had a role inCaste (1915). He could also be seen inThe Second Mrs Tanqueray (1916). The following year a novelThe Transactions of Lord Louis Lewis was published.[15]
He joined the army in 1916 and was invalided out in Christmas 1917.[10]
In 1954, he and his elder son Michael createdThe Grove Family – generally regarded as being the firstsoap opera on British television[25] – for theBBC. Having previously written an episode ofDouglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents, this marked Pertwee's second and final foray into television writing. Like many BBC television productions of the era, it was broadcast live. At its height, the series had drawn in almost a quarter of British people who owned a television. Reportedly,Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother was a great fan. A film version, entitledIt's a Great Day, was produced in 1955, likewise written by the Pertwees.
Pertwee also wrote works of juvenile fiction, including the seriesThe Islanders, which serves up typicalBoy's Own adventure with a strongfield sports theme.The Islanders (1950) andRough Water (1951) tell the adventures of three boys with the run of a sporting estate in the wildDevon countryside during a summer holiday. The third book,Operation Wild Goose (1955), takes place some years later, on a trip to Iceland, where the boys come up against Russian spies, in between landing fat salmon.
A further book,An Actor's Life for Me (1953), features just one of theIslanders boys, Nick, as he follows his parents onto the stage.
Pertwee wrote two short stories, "The River God" and "Fish Are Such Liars" which are now considered[by whom?] classics and have been anthologized in the book,Fisherman's Bounty, edited by Nick Lyons, and originally published by Crown in 1970, then by Fireside in 1988.
^"MAN OF MANY PARTS".The Telegraph (SECOND ed.). Brisbane. 6 July 1940. p. 6. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Mainly About People".The Daily News. Vol. XXXIII, no. 12, 193 (THIRD ed.). Western Australia. 29 July 1914. p. 5. Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"ROLAND PERTWEE, PLAYWRIGHT, DIES: Film Writer and Novelist Studied Art With Sargent"The New York Times 28 April 1963: 88.
^"AUTHOR'S FIND".Truth. No. 950. Western Australia. 15 October 1921. p. 8. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"INTERFERENCE".Table Talk. No. 3168. Victoria, Australia. 24 January 1929. p. 27. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^Robins, Denise,Stranger Than Fiction (London,Hodder & Stoughton, 1965, autobiography)
^"PICTURES and PLAYS".The World's News. No. 1535. New South Wales, Australia. 13 May 1931. p. 11. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"BEST-PAID IDLER".The Mail. Vol. 20, no. 999. Adelaide. 18 July 1931. p. 10. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"FOR HOLLYWOOD".Morning Bulletin. No. 21, 104. Queensland, Australia. 14 March 1934. p. 11. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Wait Disney's".The Mercury. Vol. CXLVIII, no. 21, 068. Tasmania, Australia. 4 June 1938. p. 5. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^in a short (15 min) and a long (35 min) version, see IMDb. As proseThe voice that said Goodnight., inCrime stories from the'Strand', ed. Geraldine Beare, London 1961; in German:Die Stimme, die 'Gute Nacht' sagte. Transl. Richard Fenzl, inClassical Detective Stories – Klassische Detektivgeschichten, Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag dtv, Munich 1993, p. 198–243
^"A CALL ON THE COUNTRY".The Journal. Vol. LII, no. 14254 (NIGHT ed.). Adelaide. 24 February 1917. p. 7. Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"GENERAL NEWS".The Advertiser. Vol. LIX, no. 18, 313. Adelaide. 23 June 1917. p. 6. Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"JACKIE PLAY-ALONE".The Leader. No. 3237. Victoria. 26 January 1918. p. 50 (WEEKLY). Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"THE NEW MAGAZINE".The Telegraph. No. 14, 346 (SECOND ed.). Brisbane. 16 November 1918. p. 9. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"THE MARCH MAGAZINES".The Week. Vol. LXXXIX, no. 2, 316. Brisbane. 14 May 1920. p. 26. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"A Story in Two Parts".The Chronicle. Vol. LXIII, no. 3, 332. Adelaide. 31 July 1920. p. 40. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"A Story in Two Parts".The Chronicle. Vol. LXIII, no. 3, 333. Adelaide. 7 August 1920. p. 40. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"A SILLY THING TO DO".The Age. No. 20, 661. Victoria, Australia. 18 June 1921. p. 19. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Tripped".Shepparton Advertiser. No. 3902. Victoria, Australia. 5 January 1922. p. 4. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"The Story Pages".The Chronicle. Vol. LXVIII, no. 3, 631. Adelaide. 24 April 1926. p. 63. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"EMPTY ARMS".Queensland Figaro. Vol. XXXVIII, no. 33. Queensland, Australia. 29 August 1931. p. 15. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Greater London".The World's News. No. 2151. New South Wales, Australia. 27 February 1943. p. 16. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Move, Britannia".The Australasian. Vol. CLIX, no. 5, 054. Victoria, Australia. 10 November 1945. p. 8. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Books and Writers".Table Talk. No. 1732. Victoria, Australia. 3 October 1918. p. 34. Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"THE LITERARY PAGE".The Register. Vol. LXXXIV, no. 22, 597. Adelaide. 12 April 1919. p. 4. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"SERIOUS STUDY BY ROLAND PERTWEE".The Mail. Vol. 29, no. 1, 485. Adelaide. 9 November 1940. p. 3 (Supplement to "THE MAIL" MAGAZINE SECTION). Retrieved28 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"FROM LONDON TOWN".The Week. Vol. XCIV, no. 2, 448. Brisbane. 24 November 1922. p. 22. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"JUNIOR BOOKSHELF".The Age. No. 30233. Victoria, Australia. 22 March 1952. p. 17. Retrieved29 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
