Roland Pertwee

Roland Pertwee
Born	Roland Pertwee (1885-05-17)17 May 1885 Steyning, Sussex, England
Died	26 April 1963(1963-04-26) (aged 77) Maidstone, Kent, England
Occupation	Writer, Playwright, Director, Actor
Period	20th century

Roland Pertwee (17 May 1885, Steyning, Sussex – 26 April 1963, Maidstone, Kent) was an English playwright, film and television screenwriter, director and actor. He was the father of Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee and fellow playwright and screenwriter Michael Pertwee. He was also the second cousin of actor Bill Pertwee and grandfather of actors Sean Pertwee and Dariel Pertwee.

From the 1910s to 1950s, he worked as a writer on many British films, providing either the basic story or full screenplay. He was one of numerous writers working on the script of A Yank at Oxford starring Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh, the film in which his son Jon made his screen debut, and on Caravan.

While he seemingly preferred writing, he acted in ten films (1915–45) and directed Breach of Promise (1942), which he also wrote.

Career

In 1914, four short plays by Pertwee, including Swank, were produced in London.

Pertwee had a role in Caste (1915). He could also be seen in The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1916).

He adapted a play Quinneys (1919), in which he also played a small role. He wrote The Bridal Chair (1919), Hope (1919), Charity (1919), The Right Element (1919), Faith (1919), The Last Rose of Summer (1920), and Aunt Rachel (1920).

Pertwee co wrote a play Out to Win (1921) which was filmed in 1921.

He wrote the plays Creaking Chair (1926) and Interference (1927).

He wrote the scripts for Packing Up (1927), and The Vortex (1928). Interference (1928) was based on his play.

His play Heatwave, written in collaboration with Denise Robins, was produced at the St James's Theatre, London, in 1929. It was later filmed as The Road to Singapore (1931).

Hollywood

For films he wrote I Like Your Nerve (1931), and Honor of the Family (1931). A play The Metropolitan Players had a run on Broadway in 1932.

Back in England he did Murder on the Second Floor (1932); Love Me, Love My Dog (1932); Postal Orders (1932); Impromptu (1932); Help Yourself (1932); A Voice Said Goodnight (1932); A Letter of Warning (1932); The Silver Greyhound(1932); Illegal (1932); Blind Spot (1932); [Sleeping Car (1933), for Anatole Litvak; The Ghoul (1933) with Boris Karloff and The Crucifix (1934).

Pertwee also wrote British Agent (1934), directed by Michael Curtiz and The Night of the Party (1935), based on his play, directed by Michael Powell. He was credited on Honours Easy (1935), based on his play, and Man of the Moment (1935). Without Regret (1935) was based on his play.

He did some work on the scripts for Two's Company (1936) and King Solomon's Mines (1937). He wrote Non-Stop New York (1937), and Dinner at the Ritz (1937), and was one of many writers on A Yank at Oxford (1938).

Pertwee wrote Kicking Around the Moon (1938), The Ware Case (1938), and wrote A Voice Said Goodnight (1938) for TV.

World War Two

He wrote A Spy in Black (1939) and adapted The Four Just Men (1939) in which he also had an acting role. He wrote Young Man's Fancy (1939), They Came by Night (1940), Return to Yesterday (1940), and The Proud Valley (1940). He wrote a short, Dangerous Comment (1940), and did It Happened to One Man (1940), and Freedom Radio (1941). In 1940 his autobiography Master of None was published.

Pertwee wrote Pimpernel Smith (1941) and had a small role on screen. He appeared in The Day Will Dawn (1942), Talk About Jacqueline (1942), The Gentle Sex (1943), The Halfway House (1944), They Were Sisters (1945), Nightbeat (1947).

As a writer he did Jeannie (1941), Breach of Promise (1942) (which he also directed), Talk About Jacqueline (1942), The Gentle Sex (1943), The Lamp Still Burns (1943), The Night Invader (1943), and The Halfway House (1944).

Gainsborough

Pertwee went to Gainsborough to work on the melodramas Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), They Were Sisters (1945), Caravan (1946), and The Magic Bow (1946).

His play Pink String and Sealing Wax was filmed in 1945. He wrote Nightbeat (1947), Silent Dust (1949), Diamond City (1949), and Captain Blackjack (1950). He wrote for TV on Rheingold Theatre and did the feature Give Them a Ring (1954).

The Grove Family

In 1954, he and his elder son Michael created The Grove Family - generally regarded as being the first soap opera on British television - for the BBC. Having previously written an episode of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents, this marked Pertwee's second and final foray into television writing. Like many BBC television productions of the era, it was broadcast live. At its height, the series had drawn in almost a quarter of British people who owned a television. Reportedly, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother was a great fan

A film version, entitled It's a Great Day, was produced in 1955, likewise written by the Pertwees.

His final feature credit was Not Wanted on Voyage (1957).

Juvenile Fiction

Pertwee also wrote a number of works of juvenile fiction, most prominently the series The Islanders, which serves up typical Boy's Own adventure with a strong field sports theme. The Islanders (1950) and Rough Water (1951) tell the adventures of three boys with the run of a sporting estate in the wild Devon countryside during a summer holiday. The third book, Operation Wild Goose (1955), takes place some years later, on a trip to Iceland, where the boys come up against Russian spies, in between landing fat salmon.

A further book, An Actor's Life For Me (1953), features just one of the Islanders boys, Nick, as he follows his parents onto the stage.

Pertwee wrote two short stories, "The River God" and "Fish Are Such Liars" which are now considered classics and have been anthologized in the book, Fisherman's Bounty, edited by Nick Lyons, and originally published by Crown in 1970, then by Fireside in 1988.

Later years and death

Following the cancellation of The Grove Family in 1957, Pertwee retired from writing. He died in April 1963, three weeks before his 78th birthday.

Selected works

• Out to Win (1921)
• The Spider (1928)
• Honours Easy (1930)

Partial filmography

Actor

• Caste (1915)
• The Four Just Men (1939)
• Pimpernel Smith (1941) as Sir George Smith
• The Halfway House (1944) as the Prison Governor
• They Were Sisters (1945) as Sir Hamish Nair - Screenplay by Roland Pertwee

Screenwriter

• The Bridal Chair (1919)
• Aunt Rachel (1920)
• The Last Rose of Summer (1920)
• A South Sea Bubble (1928)
• Blind Spot (1932)
• A Voice Said Goodnight (1932)
• Illegal (1932)
• Sleeping Car (1933)
• The Night of the Party (1935)
• Man of the Moment (1935)
• Two's Company (1936)
• Non-Stop New York (1937)
• King Solomon's Mines (1937)
• The Ware Case (1938)
• Young Man's Fancy (1939)
• Return to Yesterday (1940)
• They Came by Night (1940)
• Jeannie (1941)
• Talk About Jacqueline (1942)
• Not Wanted on Voyage (1957)

Plays turned into films

• Out to Win (1923)
• The Road to Singapore (1931)
• A Voice Said Goodnight. (1932)
• Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)

External links

• Works by Roland Pertwee at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Roland Pertwee at Internet Archive
• Works by Roland Pertwee at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Roland Pertwee at IMDb