John Bluthal (born Isaac Bluthal; 12 August 1929 – 15 November 2018)[2] was a Polish-born Australian actor and comedian, noted for his six-decade career internationally in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In 1949, he travelled to Europe and the United Kingdom, during which time he appeared in pantomime. He worked in repertory theatre in Melbourne and appeared in Australian radio dramas, as well as television productions including Shell Presents and Three's A Crowd. He also devised and produced Gaslight Music Hall, in which he starred.
Career
Bluthal moved to the United Kingdom permanently in 1960[1] and appeared in Citizen James in 1960 for BBC television, and the long-running ITV comedy series Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (1967–71) in which he played Manny Cohen, a Jewish London tailor in business with an Irish Catholic tailor, Patrick Kelly, played by Joe Lynch. Also in the 1960s, he provided the voice for Commander Zero in the television Supermarionation series Fireball XL5 (1962–63).
Bluthal had worked with Spike Milligan before leaving Australia, appearing with him in a 1958 Australian television special, The Gladys Half-Hour, in the Australian radio comedy series The Idiot Weekly. On relocating to Britain, he appeared as several characters in Milligan and John Antrobus' stage play The Bedsitting Room, which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963.[5][6][7] He also appeared in The Omar Khayyam Show, a UK remake of episodes from The Idiot Weekly. He later worked extensively with Milligan on the television series Q and its radio counterpart The Milligan Show. Bluthal was able to produce many comedic and imitative voices, like Milligan's radio colleague Peter Sellers, and he was used somewhat like Sellers in Milligan's later work.
His later television appearances have been in the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley as the fastidious minutes-taker Frank Pickle and as the caretaker Rocko in Spirited.
His final appearance was with his daughter Lisa Bluthal in her 2018 short film By Any Other Name, a comedy about a daughter dealing with her father's Alzheimer's.[11]
Personal life
Bluthal married actress Judyth Barron in 1956. Together they had two daughters Nava and Lisa, but later separated. Barron died in 2016.[3]
Bluthal's agent confirmed on 16 November 2018 that the actor had died, aged 89, in New South Wales, Australia.[13] Following his death, fellow The Vicar of Dibley actor Dawn French said "Tons of happy laughs remembered today. Cheeky, naughty, hilarious. Bye darlin' Bluey."[14] On 22 December 2018, BBC One aired The Vicar of Dibley's December 1996 episode "The Christmas Lunch Incident" with a caption at the end remembering Bluthal's death. Similarly the final episode of the lockdown edition of The Vicar of Dibley ended with a tribute just before the closing credits reading, "In loving memory of Liz, John, Emma and Roger", paying tribute to him and also three other deceased Dibley cast members (Liz Smith, Emma Chambers and Roger Lloyd-Pack).
^Milligan, Spike, & Antrobus, John (1973) The Bedsitting Room. Tandem: London. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972.
