Beloved voice of half of ‘Wallace and Gromit’
PETER SALLIS, 1921 - 2017
British actor Peter Sallis, who played irrepressible, cheese-loving inventor Wallace in the “Wallace and Gromit” cartoons, has died, his agent said Monday. He was 96.
Sallis’ talent agency, Jonathan Altaras Associates, said he died June 2 at a retirement home in London.
Born in London in 1921, Sallis began his working life in a bank but caught the acting bug as a Royal Air Force serviceman during World War II. After the war, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and built a diverse career onstage and in British film and television.
He became famous in Britain as a star of the longrunning sitcom “Last of the Summer Wine.”
Millions across the world know his voice from animator Nick Park’s “Wallace and Gromit,” which charted the adventures of a cheeseloving Yorkshireman with a passion for inventing wild contraptions and his levelheaded, silent dog, Gromit.
With their stop-motion animation and lightly anarchic British humor, Park’s shorts, features and BBC series gained fans worldwide.
The bald, green-vested character that Sallis voiced between 1989 and 2010 was instantly recognizable from his down-to-earth Yorkshire accent and frequent exclamation of “Cheese, Gromit!”
Park said Sallis “was always my first and only choice for Wallace.”
“He brought his unique gift and humor to all that he did and encapsulated the very British art of the droll and understated,” he said.