Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 18, 2012



Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career. He had his first major theatre success in Kissing Time in 1919. In 1921, he joined a concert party, The Co-Optimists, and his career began to flourish. Characters from his monologues such as Sam Small, invented by Holloway, and Albert Ramsbottom, created for him by Marriott Edgar, were absorbed into popular British culture, and Holloway developed a following for the recordings of his many monologues. At the outbreak of World War II, Holloway made short propaganda films on behalf of the British Film Institute and Pathé News and took character parts in a series of war films including Major Barbara, The Way Ahead, This Happy Breed and The Way to the Stars. In 1956 he was cast as the irresponsible Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. The role brought him international fame. In his later years, Holloway appeared in television series in the US and the UK, toured in revues, and appeared in stage plays in Britain, Canada, Australia and the US. (more...)

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