Dead at 96, very British star who gave us Cleggy and Wallace
PETER Sallis, star of the Last of the Summer Wine, has died at the age of 96.
The actor, who became a household name in Britain’s longest-running sitcom, passed away at a care home surrounded by family members, his agent announced yesterday.
The father-of-one was best-known in Britain for his 37-year role as Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine.
However, he found global fame late in life as the voice of Wallace in Nick Park’s animated Wallace and Gromit films.
With Sallis playing loveable inventor Wallace, Park’s animationed characters won three Oscars over the years.
‘Just the way he pronounces Wensleydale cheese is enough. Once he’s in place, everyone else fits around him,’ Park once said.
Last night, Park, 58, said: ‘I’m so sad, but feel so grateful and privileged to have known and worked with Peter over so many years. He was always my first and only choice for Wallace.
‘He brought his unique gift and humour to all that he did, and encapsulated the very British art of the droll and understated.’
Before Wallace and Gromit, Sallis was synonymous with Last of the Summer Wine, having starred in every episode from its inception in 1973 until the end in 2010.
Sallis played mild-mannered Norman Clegg. Other actors came and went but the classic line-up featured Sallis as Cleggy, the late actors Bill Owen as Compo, Brian Wilde as Foggy Dewhurst and Kathy Staff as Nora Batty.
The comedy’s creator Roy Clarke, 87, praised the actor’s dry humour and his work ethic.
He said: ‘I admired him enormously, he was a very, very nice guy. I used to give him the best lines, because he always knew what to do with them.’
When the show began, Sallis already had more than 25 years of acting experience under his belt. Born in Twickenham, south-west London, his father was a bank manager and his mother a housewife. He followed his father into banking and might have stayed there were it not for the Second World War.
He signed up for the RAF but failed his aircrew medical and became a radio instructor. It was while in the RAF that he caught the acting bug and when he was demobbed in 1946 he won a scholarship to Rada.
His first TV role came in 1947, playing Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In his early career he concentrated on theatre and appeared with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Orson Welles.
During the 1950s and 1960s he worked steadily in a succession of TV shows, with minor parts in Z Cars, The Avengers and Doctor Who. He also featured in a number of British films.
In 1957, Sallis married actress Elaine Usher, who died aged 84 last year. They had a son, Crispian, 57, before divorcing in 1965.
In 1983, a student, Park, wrote to Sallis asking him to be the voice of a clay character called Wallace. The actor agreed to do it for a £50 fee to his favourite charity.
But it was not until 1989 that the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out, finally reached the screen. The short was nominated for an Oscar. Its follow-ups The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) were winners.
Wallace and Gromit’s first feature-length movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released in 2005 and became a box office hit on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as winning a third Oscar.
In 2011, Sallis, who suffered from the eye condition macular degeneration, was forced to step aside.
Reflecting on Wallace and Gromit, Sallis, who received an OBE for services to drama in 2007, said: ‘To still be involved in a project like this at my age is heart-warming. I am very lucky.’
‘Unique gift and humour’