Curse of Steptoe and Son as troubled stars died after | UK News

Steptoe and Son was one of the most profitable comedies of the sixties and seventies – first broadcast by the BBC in 1962. Starring Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett, the programme follows “dirty old man” Albert Steptoe and his son Harold as they run a rag-and-bone business together, despite Harold’s dream of attaining one thing greater.

The sequence was profitable enough to spark two characteristic movie spin-offs in 1972 and 1973, as properly as being remade in the US, Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and Portugal. In a 2004 ballot, it was voted fifteenth best British sitcom by BBC audiences.

But for its solid, not all the things was as rosy off-camera as it was on. Leading man Corbett’s health began to decline in the late 70s, having been a heavy smoker throughout his life – consuming around 60 cigarettes per day.

He suffered a coronary heart assault in 1979 and managed to cut down the smoking to 20 cigarettes per day. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to save him, and Corbett died of a second coronary heart assault in March 1982, aged just 57.

Before that, he had been concerned in a devastating car crash which left him with extreme facial accidents, which have been still seen when he starred in Shoestring.

Corbett was also struggling with his personal relationships. He was married twice – first to actress Sheila Steafel from 1958 until 1964, and then to Maureen Blott from 1969 until his death. He was accused of “trying to control” his first spouse by telling her what to put on, belittling her profession and allegedly forcing himself on her.

Throughout his life, Henry had taken on a vary of odd jobs – at numerous occasions he was a supply boy, a plumber and a nurse. He shortly discovered success as an actor afterwards, touchdown the position of Macbeth at the Bristol Old Vic and ultimately working for the BBC.

After Steptoe and Son ended, however, his profession “nosedived”. Henry had “hardly any offers of work” and occasions have been “desperate”, according to A Glint of Light. 

He was even determined enough to commit to a theatre run of Steptoe and Son, but the manufacturing was disastrous, with his co-star Brambell often forgetting his traces due to his own battle with alcoholism. 

In Brambell’s own life, issues weren’t wanting a lot better. Though he was married to Mary Hall from 1948 until 1955, rumours abounded that Brambell was attracted to males. He was arrested and prosecuted in 1962 for persistently importuning in a Shepherd’s Bush toilet, being conditionally discharged after the arrest under the intimacyual Offences Act.

He had been apprehended by two undercover policemen and it was claimed he was “looking and staring at people and smiling at them.” His defence insisted he had imbibed an excessive amount of alcohol at a BBC social gathering and wasn’t conscious Shepherd’s Bush was “an area peculiar people resorted to”.

He insisted, however: “I’m not a homoinappropriate… the very thought disgusts me.” 

In a mortifying on-set incident recounted in his biography You Dirty Old Man! The Authorised Biography of Wilfrid Brambell by David Clayton, Brambell was focused by his co-stars.

His co-star Carolyn Seymour recalled: “What we had on that crew was a bunch of awful homophobes who put a sign at the public toilets where we shot a scene that said ‘Welcome home Wilfrid’, because it was apparently the one that he’d been arrested at. 

“I was furious and tried to stand up for him but was just told to be quiet. It was horrible and mortifying for Wilfrid.”

After the trial, he moved in with a female friend, Anne Pichon, who said: “I would hear him wake up in the night, literally screaming, howling with pain.”

Brambell’s marriage collapsed after it was revealed the kid he shared with Mary wasn’t truly his – and had instead been fathered by a lodger. He started to battle with alcohol abuse and was left “absolutely devastated” when his co-star Henry died. 

In 1985, Brambell himself died of cancer in his Westminster home at the age of 72. Only six people attended his lonely funeral.