Product Description

More than twenty years after Lowe died in 1982, DAD'S ARMY has become a classic comedy series, is regularly repeated all over the world, and has captured yet another generation of enchanted fans. Lowe became an actor when he was a sergeant fighting in the North African desert during WW2 after helping one of his officers build a theatre in Alexandria. On top of his long TV career, which took off when he appeared in CORONATION STREET in 1960, he also appeared as a singer and dancer in three West End musicals, on stage in numerous serious plays and in more than fifty films. For this first in-depth biography of Lowe, Graham Lord has followed in his footsteps all over Britain and interviewed both his sons and other relatives, as well as dozens of actors, friends and army comrades, including all of the surviving stars of DAD'S ARMY.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321023 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
Graham Lord is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed biographies, in cluding those of Jeffrey Bernard, Dick Francis, James Herriot, David Niven, and most recently John Mortimer. He was literary editor of the Sunday Express for 23 years, and now lives in the south of France.

Customer Reviews

A lot of life in a little man
For those of you, such as myself, with a high regard for one of Arthur Lowe's most famous characters - Captain Mainwaring, this book is absolutely fascinating.It is hard to imagine the lengths Graham Lord has gone to in resarching this book, indeed there are six pages of acknowledgements from where the author has obtained the information about Arthur Lowe's life and career: from his early childhood days in his hometown of Hayfield, Derbyshire, through his real life army career producing and starring in many shows for the troops and covering his professional and private life after the war ended.There were three great loves of Arthur Lowe's life - his wife Joan Lowe (nee Cooper), acting of course and an old Victorian steam yacht - the Amazon which Arthur Lowe bought, renovated, holidayed on and lived in. Not easy when you have a wife and two small children also.All of these subjects are covered in great and precise detail by the author and I would urge anybody who has ever watched Dad's Army or Coronation Street and been entertained by, in my humble opinion, the greatest character actor this country has ever produced to buy this book NOW and get a fascinating insight into the life and career of Arthur Lowe.You will discover that, sadly, beneath the facade of a happy, funny, jolly actor there was tragedy in his life and sadness in his life - most notably concerning his wife Joan, an alcoholic who Arthur had a deep sense of devotion to and more often than not would refuse to accept a role if nothing could be found to accomodate his wife in it also.This book is a truly stunning piece of work and I think that Graham Lord has done an absolutely magnificent job in covering Arthur Lowe's life and career in a enthralling and exciting way.

A Very Well-Researched and Revealing Biography!
Of all the celebrity bios I have read, never have I read one so revealing as Graham Lord's 2002 biography of the late Arthur Lowe. What makes this bio so different from most is that Lord had access to the Lowes' personal correspondence and diaries, which makes for a very insightful and interesting read. Nevertheless, I can't help thinking that Lowe must be turning in his grave to know that we, the public (whom Lowe had little respect for), are privy to things never intended for public consumption. Indeed, had Lowe written his memoirs prior to his death in 1982 from a severe stroke (he collapsed in his dressing room in between performances), it certainly would have been a very, very different portrait that we'd have gotten, for what we get here is a harsh, unwhitewashed glimpse of the very private man behind the mask--warts and all--and of his pathetically insecure, alcoholic wife Joan.

Lord is a very capable author, and this book is extremely well researched and nothing short of captivating. The hardcover version has 250 pages of text and there are 16 pages of black-and-white photos, a few of which are stills from series and films but most of which are personal in nature. The book is rife with anecdotes and impressions from the Lowes' personal friends (what few they had), their family members, and their professional colleagues--who include the surviving members of Dad's Army (Bill Pertwee (the Warden), Clive Dunn (Jonesey), Frank Williams (the Vicar) and Ian Lavender (Pike)); Daniel Abineri (Father Duddleswell's young curate on Bless Me Father); John Inman (Mr. Humphries of Are You Being Served?); as well as comedy series' writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

Born in 1916, Arthur Lowe is most famous as the pompous, self-important Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army, and a large portion of the book covers the Dad's Army period and is complete with loads of interesting anecdotes about the series and the other actors in it. Older fans of Coronation Street may also remember Lowe from his role as Swindley in the earliest years of the show (back in the early 60s). Of course, one cannot forget his memorable role as the curmudgeonly, quick-witted, tight-fisted Father Duddleswell in Bless Me Father, a series which unfortunately gets little coverage in the book.

Suffice it to say one gets more than enough information to form a very complete picture of both Joan and Arthur. For those who are familiar with the very talented late Arthur Lowe and are interested in knowing more about the man himself and his personal life, I highly recommend this book.

Disappointing
This book has been written by a lazy author, it is a small book but before you even get to the story of Arthur's life there are six pages of acknowledgements, it is quite obvious a lot the research is from other books and the author admits to this, in the first chapter you would be hard pushed to realise who the book is about as it is filled with all kinds of irrelevent trivialities that you don't need to know, the village is described in great detail and lists every single shop and building in it by name which seems like the author is already padding the book before it even begins to deal with the life of the subject, the way it is written is strange too , the author refers to Arthur's relatives as if they are his own, I am not sure if this is because he thinks he knows them or if it is because a lot of this book is lifted from Arthur's son's own book, either way it is a strange way to write a book in my opinion. Overall I would not recommend this book for the reasons I mention above and also for the reason that there is not a lot in it that I didn't know already and if you are a fan of Arthur I am pretty sure you will know a lot of the content too.