Drake, Charlie

▪ 2007

Charles Edward Springall 

      British comedian and actor (b. June 19, 1925, Elephant and Castle, London, Eng.—d. Dec. 23, 2006, Twickenham, Middlesex, Eng.), delighted audiences with his slapstick comic antics in stage variety shows and on television for more than 50 years, often playing a downtrodden “everyman,” who failed at everything he tried. The diminutive 1.56-m (5-ft 1¹/₂-in) Drake first teamed with Jack Edwardes (who towered over him at 1.91 m [6 ft 3 in]) in 1955 as Mick and Montmorency on the children's TV program Jobstoppers. Later he appeared in such shows as Charlie Drake In… (1958–60), The Charlie Drake Show (1960–61, 1963, 1967–68), and, probably his best-known show, The Worker, which he did intermittently from 1965 to 1978. From the late 1970s Drake also appeared onstage and on television in dramatic roles, notably Touchstone in William Shakespeare's As You Like It, Davies in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, and Smallweed in Charles Dickens's Bleak House.

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