Derek Nimmo

Derek Robert Nimmo (19 September 1930 – 24 February 1999) was an English character actor, producer and author. He is best remembered for his comedic upper class "silly ass" and clerical roles, including Revd Mervyn Noote in the BBC1 sitcom ''All Gas and Gaiters'' (1966–71).

Career

Nimmo was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, the son of an insurance salesman, and grew up in Mossley Hill in an environment he described as "old merchants' houses, comfy English suburbia". He was educated at Booker Avenue Infants and Junior School as well as Quarry Bank High School for Boys, then a grammar school under headmaster R. F. Bailey, who brought with him, from his previous position as assistant headmaster at leading independent school Shrewsbury School, "the finest traditions of public schools". He then followed his father into the insurance business, and after National Service in Cyprus, became a salesman for a paint company. He began his stage career at the Hippodrome Theatre in Bolton, Lancashire. It was during this time that he made a cameo appearance in the Beatles' film '' A Hard Day's Night'' (in which he appeared as "Leslie Jackson", a magician with doves).

He appeared in a number of British films and television series, as aristocrats, including starring roles in the television comedy series '' The World of Wooster'' (as "Bingo Little"), and in the comedy film '' One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing'' (as "Lord Southmere"), as well as appearing in the James Bond spoof film '' Casino Royale''.

Nimmo made his name as the Reverend Mervyn Noote in the British sitcom ''All Gas and Gaiters'' (1966). At the time it was considered rather controversial because the main characters were senior churchmen (the Bishop, his chaplain Noote and the Archdeacon) who got into various scrapes as a result of their general incompetence. By the time the series finished, Nimmo was identified with the stereotype of a traditional British clergyman and he went on to play a bungling monk in another BBC clerical sitcom, '' Oh, Brother!'', and a Roman Catholic priest in its sequel series, ''Oh, Father!'' In 1969, Nimmo received an award for his performances in both sitcoms, when the Royal Television Society awarded him a silver medal. Another sitcom in which he appeared in a starring role as a clergyman, many years later, was '' Hell's Bells'' (by now promoted to a dean) which ran for one series in 1986. He also appeared as the Reverend Jonathan Green in a television production of ''Cluedo''. He became so well known for his clerical parody that, in the 1975 ''The Goodies'' episode " Wacky Wales", a "team of Derek Nimmos" played in a spoof "Ecclesiastical