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"Johnny Speight is a great satirist, and satire has always gone over the heads of the idiots."

Warren Mitchell, born Warren Misell, (14 January 1926 –- 14 November 2015), was a British actor best known for playing Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part and In Sickness and in Health.

While studying at Oxford, he met Richard Burton and joined the RAF with him in 1944. Burton was able to convince him that acting would be better than a chemistry degree and so Mitchell thusly attended RADA.

In 1951, he finally became a professional actor. His first role was as a regular on Educating Archie, a radio show, followed by Hancock's Half Hour and it's TV adaptation. After playing many small roles in drama (often Typecast as foreign villains), Mitchell was cast in the lead role of Till Death Us Do Part, that of Cockney bigot Alf Garnett (originally called Alf Ramsey). Mitchell was such a success playing Alf that he reprised the role for two feature films (Till Death Us Do Part and The Alf Garnett Saga) and two follow-up series (Till Death... and In Sickness and in Health). Once writer Johnny Speight died in 1988, Mitchell stopped playing Alf out of respect.

He was also a notable stage actor, winning a BAFTA in 1967 and a Laurence Olivier Award in 1979 and 2004.

He died at the age of 89 after a long illness.


Works on TV Tropes he appeared in:

FilmsSeries
  • Hancock's Half Hour, 6 episodes:
    • "The Artist" (1956) — Art Dealer
    • "The Dancer" (1956) — Mr. Fancy
    • "The Radio Show" (1956) — Head of TV Variety
    • "The Chef That Died of Shame" (1956) — Grant Faversham
    • "Lady Chatterley's Revenge" (1957) — Lew Silver
    • "Underpaid! or, Grandad's SOS" (1959) — Grimaldo
  • Danger Man, 3 episodes:
    • "An Affair of State" (1960) — Jose Santiago
    • "The Traitor" (1961) — Banarji
    • "Find and Return" (1961) — Stashig
  • Maigret, episode "Inspector Lognun's Triumph" (1961) — Aristide
  • The Saint, 3 episodesshow list  (1962-63) — Marco Di Cesari
  • Z Cars, episode "The Five Whistles" (1962) — Morrie Morris
  • The Avengers, 4 episodes:
    • "The Golden Fleece" (1963) — Captain Jason
    • "The Charmers" (1964) — Keller
    • 2 episodesshow list  (1965-67) — Brodny
  • Redcap, episode "Corporal McCann's Private War" (1964) — Inspector Gregoriou
  • Out of the Unknown, episode "The Fox and the Forest" (1965) — Joe
  • Till Death Us Do Part, 53 episodes (1966-75) — Alf Garnett
  • The Sweeney, episode "Big Spender" (1975) — William Wardle
  • Play for Today, episode "Moss" (1975) — Moss
  • Acropolis Now, episode "Old Bar... New Bar" (1989) — Kostas Stephanidis
  • Lovejoy, episode "Ducking and Diving" (1993) — Uncle Jack
  • Screen One, episode "Wall of Silence" (1993) — Samuel Singer
  • Gormenghast, 4 episodes (2000) — Barquentine
  • Last of the Summer Wine, episode "Potts in Pole Position" (2001) — Lother Potts
  • Waking the Dead, 2 episodesshow list  (2002) — Edgar Truelove

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