Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE was an English actor, comedian and singer-songwriter best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin. Wisdom gained a celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania, where his films were the only ones by Western actors permitted by dictator Enver Hoxha to be shown. Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown". Wisdom later forged a career on Broadway in New York and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently in 1981. It was broadcast on 5 June that year. He toured Australia and South Africa. After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a hospice was named in his honour. In 1995 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and of Tirana. The same year he received an OBE. Wisdom was knighted in 2000 and spent much of his later life on the Isle of Man. 

February 4th, 1915 in London  /  Died:   Oct 4th, 2010 - aged 95