Ronnie Barker

**Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker**, OBE 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.

## Early Life

Barker was born Ronald William George Barker on 25 September 1929 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, to Leonard (known as "Tim") and Edith (known as "Cis") Barker. Barker's elder sister Vera was born in 1926 and his younger sister Eileen was born in 1933. His father was a clerk for Shell-Mex, and this job saw the family move to Church Cowley Road in Temple Cowley, Oxford when Barker was four. Barker's biographer Bob McCabe described his childhood as "a happy time, marred by no ructions or family tensions, apart from the occasional wet sock." As a child, Barker enjoyed dressing up, particularly in his father's pierrot outfit, as well as films, comics and animals. He developed a love of the theatre, often attending plays with his family. The first play he saw was *Cottage to Let* and he once skipped school to see Laurence Olivier in *Henry V*. He frequently stood outside stage-doors to collect autographs, his first being the actress Celia Johnson.

Barker grew up in the Florence Park area of Temple Cowley, Oxford, and went to Donnington Junior School, Florence Park, Oxford and then the City of Oxford High School for Boys. Barker's chemistry textbook at Oxford was previously owned by T.E. Lawrence. He found his talent for humour at school and developed his musical ability by singing in the choir at St James's, his local church. He got in to the sixth form a year early after gaining the School Certificate but he felt what he was learning would be of no use to him in later life and so left as soon as he could. After leaving school he trained as an architect but gave it up after six months, feeling he was not skilled enough. Barker took his sister Vera's job as a bank clerk at the Westminster Bank (after she had left to become a nurse). Barker harboured dreams of becoming an actor, and took up amateur dramatics, although initially he just saw the pastime as a chance to meet girls. For 18 months while at the bank he worked as an actor and stage manager, making his first appearance in *A Murder Has Been Arranged* as the musical director of the play-within-a-play. Eventually he gave up his job to become a professional actor. His father did not support his acting ambition.

## *The Two Ronnies*

Barker appeared in *The Two Ronnies*, a sketch show which aired for twelve series and eight specials between 1971 and

1987, and rose to immediate success. Barker wrote much of the show's material, roughly three-quarters, again under the name Gerald Wiley. He was heavily involved with the show's production, especially the serial. Corbett (who starred in the show with him) explained that Barker was a "perfectionist" and "as he wrote it Ronnie knew how he wanted every shot to look."

The show was considered a "national institution" with audiences of between 15 and 20 million regularly tuning in to its 93 episodes. Barker won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1971 and 1977 for the show. *The Two Ronnies* ended with the 1987 Christmas special.

## Other work

Following the success of *The Two Ronnies*, the BBC let Barker decide what he wanted to do. *The Two Ronnies* took up one third of a year to produce, allowing time for Barker and Corbett to each do a solo project. Barker's opted to produce some sitcom pilots shown as part of 1973's *Seven of One*. Two of these pilots, *Open All Hours* (written by Roy Clarke) and *Prisoner and Escort* (written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais) became series.

Barker opted to end *Porridge* after two series and instead focused on *Open All Hours, alongside* David Jason,before working on spin-off sitcom *Going Straight*.

## Personal Life

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."

## Death

Barker's health rapidly declined after the filming of *The Two Ronnies Sketchbook* (2005). He died of heart failure at the Katherine House hospice in Adderbury, Oxfordshire, on 3 October 2005, aged 76, with Joy by his side.

Barker was cremated at a private humanist funeral at Banbury Crematorium, which was attended only by family and close friends. A public memorial service for Barker was held on 3 March 2006 at Westminster Abbey, with some 2,000 people in attendance. Corbett, Richard Briers, Josephine Tewson, Michael Grade and Peter Kay all read at the service, while others in attendance included David Jason, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Leslie Phillips, Lenny Henry, Dawn French and June Whitfield.

## Filmography

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**Films**

**Television**