Search a film or person :

Ronnie Barker is a Actor and Writer British born on 25 september 1929 at Bedford (United-kingdom)

Ronnie Barker

Infos
Photos
Best films
Family
Characters
Awards

If you like this person, let us know!

Do you like this person ?

I like

I don't like

Birth name Ronald William George Barker
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 25 september 1929 at Bedford (United-kingdom)
Death 3 october 2005 (at 76 years) at Adderbury (United-kingdom)
Awards Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker, OBE (25 September 1929 – 3 October 2005) was an English actor, comedian and writer. He was known for roles in British comedy television series such as Porridge, The Two Ronnies and Open All Hours.

Barker began acting in repertory theatre and decided he was best suited to comic roles. He had his first success at the Oxford Playhouse and in roles in the West End including Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. During this period, he was in the cast of BBC radio and television comedies such as The Navy Lark. He got his television break with the satirical sketch series The Frost Report in 1966, where he met future collaborator, Ronnie Corbett. He joined David Frost's production company and starred in ITV shows including a short film.

After rejoining the BBC, Barker found fame with the sketch show The Two Ronnies (1971–1987), with Ronnie Corbett. He starred in the sitcoms Porridge, its sequel Going Straight and Open All Hours. He wrote comedy under his own name and the pseudonym Gerald Wiley, which Barker adopted to avoid pre-judgements of his talent. He won a BAFTA for best light entertainment performance four times, among other awards, and received an OBE in 1978.

Later television sitcoms such as The Magnificent Evans and Clarence were less successful and he retired in 1987. He opened an antiques shop with his wife, Joy. After 1999, he appeared in smaller, non-comic roles in films. He died of heart failure on 3 October 2005, aged 76.

Biography

Barker met Joy Tubb in Cambridge while she was a stage manager for two plays he was in. They married nine months later in July 1957 and they had three children: two sons, Larry (born 1959) and Adam (born 1968), who became an actor, and one daughter, Charlotte (born 1962), who became an actress. Larry was named after Barker's idol Laurence Olivier. The family lived in Pinner for many years; and subsequently in a converted mill in Dean, Oxfordshire. According to Corbett, Barker was "first and foremost a family man." Joy died in January 2011, aged 78.

Barker received an OBE in 1978. He was an avid collector of antiques, books and posters and amassed a collection of over 53,000 postcards; he produced several compilation books of them including Ronnie Barker's Book of Bathing Beauties, A Pennyworth of Art and Sauce. Barker rarely appeared in public, and when he did it was almost always in character. He once said "I've always known I haven't a personality of my own, I have to be someone else to be happy. That's why I became an actor, I suppose."

Barker was a heavy smoker until 1972 when he gave up the habit after having a pre-cancerous growth removed from his throat; he took to drinking wine and using placebo cigarettes to maintain his concentration and help him sleep. He underwent a heart bypass in 1996 and survived a pulmonary embolism the following year.