John Inman (Actor)

Born in 1935, Died 2007. Inman was educated at Cambridge House in Preston, and then a secondary modern school. Inman always wanted to be an actor, and his parents paid for him to have elocution lessons at the local church hall. At the age of 13 he made his stage debut in the Pavilion on Blackpool’s South Pier, in a melodrama entitled Freda.

After leaving school, Inman worked for two years at Fox’s, a gentlemen’s outfitters in Blackpool, specialising in window dressing. Aged 17, he moved to London to join retailer Austin Reed in Regent Street. Four years later, he left Austin Reed to become a scenic artist with Kenneth Kendall’s touring company at a theatre in Crewe, so that he could earn his Equity Card, required at the time for professional actors.

Inman made his West End debut in the 1960s, and his television debut in an episode of A Slight Case of … entitled The Enemy Within in 1965, next appearing in an episode of Two in Clover in 1970. After a successful pilot of Are You Being Served?, Inman played Mr. Humphries in the sitcom from 1972 to 1985. This role made him a household name and won him awards, including BBC TV Personality of the Year. Inman also made many appearances on BBC TV’s long-running television show, The Good Old Days. In 2004, Inman made additional television appearances in Doctors and Revolver.

(Ref: Wikipedia)