
Bill Kerr
Actor · 1922 – 2014 · Cape Town, South Africa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. William Henry Kerr (10 June 1922 – 28 August 2014) was a British and Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. He began working as a child actor in depression era Australia, taking his first major role in The Silence of Dean Maitland, one of Australia's first talking films. After serving in the Second World War, Kerr moved to England to further his acting career, and during the 1940s he was regularly featured in the BBC radio series Variety Bandbox. His trademark was his catch phrase "I'm only here for 4 minutes..." In the 1950s, he had a recurring role as an Australian lodger in the BBC radio comedy series Hancock's Half Hour. Initially sharper than Hancock's characterisation, it was developed into a more dim-witted character who became the butt of Hancock's jokes. His television appearances in Britain include a 1968 Doctor Who story called The Enemy of the World, with Patrick Troughton, and a long running part in the early 1960s BBC-TV soap, Compact. Bill Kerr had much theatrical success in Britain, playing The Devil in the original West End production of Damn Yankees, directed by Bob Fosse, and Cole. He also worked with Spike Milligan. He appeared in Milligan and John Antrobus's stage play The Bed-Sitting Room, which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963. A subsequent production opened on 3 May 1967 at the Saville Theatre, and "a cast containing an unusually high proportion of Australian actors including Bill Kerr and David Nettheim." Then in 1972 he co-starred with Anthony Newley in the long running Newley/Bricusse musical, The Good Old Bad Old Days. In 1975, Kerr took the part of Bluey Notts, described as "an Australian bookie's clerk, a crude racialist", in The Melting Pot. This was a sitcom written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand, which was cancelled by the BBC after just one episode had been broadcast. He also appeared in several British films, including The Dam Busters and The Wrong Arm of the Law, before moving back to Australia. Although probably best known as a comic actor, and especially for his appearances in Hancock's Half Hour, he has since played a number of serious roles, notably in Peter Weir's films Gallipoli (1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). He also worked on the Australian stage in the 1980s, in musicals such as My Fair Lady, where he received excellent reviews as Alfred Doolittle. In 2001, he appeared in the Australian comedy Let's Get Skase. Kerr also appeared in Glenview High and the 1998 television comedy series Minty. Kerr has also been involved in documentaries, providing the narration for No Survivor - The Mysterious Loss of HMAS Sydney Nine Network Australia (1995), Malice or Mutiny for the ABC Australia 2003 and Animal X Natural Mystery Unit series for Discovery in the US, TV2 Norway and many others. Description above from the Wikipedia article Bill Kerr, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies24
Movie7.1AdventureFantasyIn stifling Edwardian London, Wendy Darling mesmerizes her brothers every night with bedtime tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and the fearsome Captain Hook. But the children become the heroes of an even greater story, when Peter Pan flies into their nursery one night and leads them over moonlit rooftops through a galaxy of stars and to the lush jungles of Neverland.
Peter Pan
2003 · 2.8K votes
Movie6.7RomanceDramaA young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.
The Year of Living Dangerously
1982 · 375 votes
Movie6.9DramaHistoryThe story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ruhr industrial complex and the execution of the raid by 617 Squadron 'The Dam Busters'.
The Dam Busters
1955 · 166 votes
Movie6.1MusicComedyA wily slave must unite a virgin courtesan and his young smitten master to earn his freedom.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
1966 · 129 votes
Movie7.1WarHistoryTwo Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Gallipoli
1981 · 571 votes
- Movie9.0MusicComedy
George enlists in the police force and is assigned to Harmony Row, a haunt of criminals such as Slogger Lee.
Harmony Row
1933 · 1 votes
Movie5.9HorrorThrillerIn the Australian outback a vicious wild boar kills and causes havoc to a small community.
Razorback
1984 · 221 votes
Movie6.7CrimeComedyThe crooks in London know how it works. No one carries guns and no one resists the police. Then a new gang appears that go one better. They dress as police and steal from the crooks. This upsets the natural order of the police/criminal relationship and the police and the crooks join forces to catch the IPOs (Impersonating Police Officers), including an armoured car robbery in which the police must help the gangs to set a trap.
The Wrong Arm of the Law
1963 · 47 votes
Movie5.4ComedyDramaAn eccentric marketing guru visits a Coca-Cola subsidiary in Australia to try and increase market penetration. He finds zero penetration in a valley owned by an old man who makes his own soft drinks, and visits the valley to see why. After "the Kid's" persistence is tested he's given a tour of the man's plant, and they begin talking of a joint venture. Things get more complicated when the Coca-Cola man begins falling in love with his temporary secretary, who seems to have connections to the valley.
The Coca-Cola Kid
1985 · 63 votes
Movie6.4HorrorA troubled young girl goes to confession at the local church. Unfortunately, the sexually frustrated priest she confesses to becomes obsessed with her. At first, the priest stalks the girl, but later it is revealed that he will stop at nothing, including blackmail and murder, just to get close to her.
House of Mortal Sin
1976 · 49 votes
Movie3.2ComedyUp and coming portrait artist Alan Street is employed by the owner of a Soho Swingers Club to paint the nude hostesses. Whilst Alan relishes his new job his beautiful girlfriend is less than impressed.
Girls Come First
1975 · 7 votes
Movie6.1WarDramaIn 1917 when the British forces are bogged down in front of the Turkish and German lines in Palestine they rely on the Australian light horse regiment to break the deadlock.
The Lighthorsemen
1987 · 40 votes
Movie6.9ThrillerDramaBritish Air Marshal Hardie is attending a party in Hong Kong when he hears of a dream, told by a pilot, in which Hardie's flight to Tokyo on a small Dakota propeller plane crashes on a Japanese beach. Hardie dismisses the dream as pure fantasy, but while he is flying to Tokyo the next day, circumstances start changing to align with the pilot's vivid vision, and it looks like the dream disaster may become a reality.
The Night My Number Came Up
1955 · 34 votes
Movie6.5DramaToss lives on a sheep farm with her father in New Zealand. When Toss's father dies in an accident, Ethan, an itinerant hunter, wanders onto the family farm and is given a job by her grandfather. Toss's fairly innocent relationship with Ethan is severed when he forms a relationship with her mother.
Vigil
1984 · 29 votes
Movie6.3Comedy"Doctor in Distress" is the fifth of the seven films in the "Doctor" series, and focuses on Sir Lancelot Spratt, Simon Sparrow's old teacher and sometimes nemesis. When the eternal bachelor Sir Lancelot injures his back and falls in love with his physiotherapist Iris Marchant, he becomes very distressed and turns to Simon for help. Simon, who now is a senior doctor at fictional Hampden Cross Hospital and hopelessly in love with aspiring actress Delia, sends him to a nature cure clinic in a vain attempt to help him lose weight, but Sir Lancelot can't get Iris off his mind and has her followed, first by a private investigator and eventually by himself. When he finally proposes, she rejects him and marries an old army major, which distresses Sir Lancelot even more.
Doctor in Distress
1963 · 16 votes
Movie4.9AdventureComedyA pirate crewman kills his captain after learning where he has hidden his buried treasure. However, as he begins to lose his memory, he relies more and more on the ghost of the man he just murdered to help him find the loot.
Ghost in the Noonday Sun
1973 · 8 votes
Movie5.3RomanceAdventureLeft behind by her friends on a boat trip, contemporary teen Mabel takes pursuit but is knocked unconscious on an island, where she has a dream involving pirates, sisters, a modern major-general, romance, and adventure.
The Pirate Movie
1982 · 49 votes
Movie5.8ComedyDoctor in Clover is another 'Doctor' movie, but this time Leslie Phillips is the main doctor in the story, looking for love and romance from the hospital nurses, much to the annoyance of the main Administrator (James Robertson Justice) who wants his doctors to be 100% focussed on the job. Numerous antics follow, with Phillips getting Justice fixed up with the new prim-and-proper Matron (Joan Sims) and his attempted failures to lure the hospital's beauty, the physiotherapist.
Doctor in Clover
1966 · 18 votes
Movie6.5WarDramaWing-commander Tim Mason leads a squadron of Lancaster bombers on almost nightly raids from England. Having flown eighty-seven missions he will shortly be retiring from flying, but the strain is showing. He tries to make sure his men concentrate only on their job and so keeps women away from the base, but then he himself meets naval officer Eve Canyon.
Appointment in London
1953 · 16 votes
Movie6.3ComedyShe's new in chambers, and he's a troublemaker. But what 'is' the true status of the old lady's wartime marriage, and can the two young legal minds find the answer?
A Pair of Briefs
1962 · 4 votes
Movie6.0ComedyA captain is promoted by his company from tramp steamers to their flagship passenger liner. Although he is a thoroughly competent sailor ready to take charge of such a ship, he is less prepared for the social duties his new position involves, not least the way he in which becomes the target for all the unattached women on board.
The Captain's Table
1959 · 6 votes
Movie8.0DramaDown-on-their-luck drifters Kearney and Martin wander into the small town of Cedar Creek looking to swindle a few pounds from the locals. After a not-too-friendly reception, the pair decide to move into an abandoned shack on the outskirts of town. They are soon joined in their new home by Joycie, another town outcast with a shady past. While the three manage to start a rather happy life together, they soon find that others in the town strongly disapprove of their living arrangements.
The Settlement
1984 · 1 votes
Movie3.8Comedy"Police Academy" clone, about some nerds who inherit an academy for morticians, which is run by a corrupt closet necropheliac. Of course, the most incompetent students possible are accepted, so that the academy will fail, and all sorts of wacky hijinks ensue.
Mortuary Academy
1988 · 8 votes
Movie5.3ComedyRomanceWhen scam artist Harry Reynolds gets out of jail, he makes his way to the depressed coastal village of Beachport, where according to local myth, an old Portuguese treasure ship lies buried in the sand. Harry is an old pro at manipulating this situation to his best advantage, but never anticipates how deeply he will be affected by the relationship he develops with a young boy and his mother. A delightful tale of greed, gullibility and grandiose schemes, "Sweet Talker" is a romantic comedy for everyone in the family.
Sweet Talker
1991 · 10 votes
Series18
TV7.9DramaAction & AdventureThe adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963 · 722 votes
TV5.0DramaSoapCompact was a British television soap opera shown by the BBC between 1962 and 1965. The series was created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling, who together went on to devise Crossroads. In contrast to the kitchen sink realism of Coronation Street, Compact was a distinctly middle-class serial, set in the more "sophisticated" arena of magazine publishing. An early "avarice" soap, it took the viewer into the business workplace, and aligned the professional lives of the characters with more personal storylines. The show was scheduled for broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, thus avoiding a clash with ITV's Coronation Street on Mondays and Wednesdays. When Compact began, the editor was a woman, Joanne Minster, yet it was not long before she was replaced by Ian Harmon, the son of the magazine's owner. Despite being largely criticised by reviewers, Compact was popular with the general public, and in 1964 a regular omnibus edition was introduced, broadcast on Sundays. Morris Barry, a some-time actor and BBC director – he directed several Doctor Who stories in the 1960s – took over as producer and was given a brief to spice the series up in view of the criticism it had received from the national press. But the BBC, never comfortable with the concept of soap opera, quietly dropped the series in 1965.
Compact
1962 · 3 votes
TV4.8CrimeDramaNo Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959 · 4 votes
TV7.4ComedyHancock's Half Hour is a BBC television comedy series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James. The final series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development.
Hancock's Half Hour
1956 · 9 votes
TV6.9DramaRich but insecure heiress Stephanie Harper believes she's found true love with tennis pro Greg Marsden, but after the nuptials, Greg promptly begins an affair with Stephanie’s best friend, Jilly Stewart. Whilst on their honeymoon, Greg pushes Stephanie into a crocodile-infested swamp, and he and Jilly watch as she is apparently mauled to death. However, Stephanie miraculously survives and travels to an island clinic where she undergoes extensive plastic surgery. Using her new identity, Tara Welles, and fortune, she plots revenge on Greg and Jilly, aiming to take back what's rightfully hers.
Return to Eden
1983 · 24 votes
- TV9.0Drama
Garry Halliday is a British television series for children that ran on the BBC from 1959 to 1962. The show starred Terence Longdon as airman Garry Halliday. The episodes were closely based on the books by Justin Blake.
Garry Halliday
1959 · 1 votes
TV5.4ComedyFamilyShip to Shore is an Australian children's television series devised by David Rapsey and written by Glenda Hambly, John Rapsey, Mary Morris, Everett de Roche, Jon Stephens and others. The program was shown on the ABC and Channel 9 in Australia, on YTV in Canada, and briefly on Nickelodeon in the United States.
Ship to Shore
1993 · 5 votes
TV7.0ComedyThe hugely successful British television series Father Dear Father is transplanted to Australia when novelist Patrick Glover and his assistant Nanny trek down under to write the great Australian crime novel, and end up supervising Patrick's boisterous young nieces while their own father is abroad.
Father, Dear Father
1978 · 3 votes
TV8.0DramaThe family lives of those working on Australia's Snowy Mountains dam in the 1950s.
Snowy
1993 · 2 votes
TV6.8War & PoliticsDramaAnzacs was a 1985 5-part Australian miniseries set in World War I. The series follows the lives of a group of young Australian men who enlist in the 8th Battalion of the First Australian Imperial Force in 1914, fighting first at Gallipoli in 1915, and then on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.
Anzacs
1985 · 10 votes
- TVDrama
Glenview High is an Australian television drama series produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Seven Network between 1977 and 1978. The show's title is a reference to the high school Glenview Park Secondary School located in Cambridge, Ontario.
Glenview High
1977
TV8.1DramaThe New Adventures of Black Beauty was the title of a television drama series produced in the early 1990s.
The New Adventures of Black Beauty
1990 · 7 votes
- TV10.0Drama
The Private War of Lucinda Smith is a 1990 Australian mini series about an Australian chorus girl living in London.
The Private War of Lucinda Smith
1991 · 1 votes
TV7.7ComedyAt and around Soho cafe Charlie's Nosh Bar, Sidney Balmoral James ('Sid') is on the lookout for any get-rich-quick scheme. He is helped by William Montmorency Beaumont Kerr ('Billy the Kerr') and quite often frustrated by local bookmaker Albert Welshman. Meanwhile, Sid's long-suffering girlfriend Liz has been waiting for seven years for Sid to set the date.
Citizen James
1960 · 5 votes
TV7.7DramaWar & PoliticsSix young Australians go to war, full of confidence and bravado. They land in Singapore in 1942, just in time for surrender. With 15,000 others, they are marched off to Changi prison camp. Together, the six boys survive three and a half years of incarceration. Almost sixty years later, the six prepare to get together for what may be their last hurrah.
Changi
2001 · 3 votes
TV5.0DramaAt eight years old, an impoverished Bert Facey was forced to start the backbreaking, dawn-to-dusk life of a farm labourer. Unschooled, his father dead, abandoned by his mother, by the age of twenty he had survived the rigours of pioneering the harsh Australian bush and the slaughter of the bloody WWI campaign at Gallipoli.
A Fortunate Life
1986 · 3 votes
TVDocumentaryAnimal X is an Australian made documentary television series that aired in more than 120 countries. It began in 1997 with its first series of thirteen half-hour episodes. In 2002, Discovery Channel in the U.S. co-produced the 2nd series of 13 half-hour episodes with the creators of the series, Australia's Storyteller Productions, for Animal Planet. At this point Animal X episodes generally had 3 stories, with one exception: "The Skookum Cast". This was a joint expedition between Animal X and the BFRO which discovered the Skookum Cast, said to be an imprint of the body of a bigfoot.
Animal X
1997
TV7.5DramaFilmed on South Australia's glorious River Murray, this television mini-series is set during the 1920s and tells of the story of a runaway who escapes to the river to work on a paddle-boat steamer and his friendship with an old salt captain played by Bill Kerr. Based on an original novel by Max Fatchen.
The River Kings
1991 · 2 votes