Peter Butterworth

Peter Butterworth's promising career in the British Navy Fleet Air Arm ended when the plane which he was flying was shot down by the Germans in WW II and he was placed in a POW camp. There he became close friends with Talbot Rothwell (later a writer on the "Carry On" series, on which Butterworth often worked) and the two began writing and performing sketches for camp shows to entertain the prisoners (and to cover up the noise of other prisoners digging escape tunnels). Never having performed in public he was petrified but gamely sang a duet with Talbot. This sparked his enthusiasm to enter show business after the war and Talbot helped and encouraged him and he soon became a familiar character actor in both films and television. He specialized in playing gentle, well-meaning but somewhat eccentric characters (which, by most accounts, is what he was in real life). He was married to impressionist Janet Brown, who he met while doing a Summer show at Scarborough and their son, Tyler Butterworth, also became an actor. Butterworth died suddenly in 1979, as he was waiting in the wings to go onstage in a pantomime show.