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The Herbs and The Adventures of Parsley
These stills are taken from the film "Carry on Doctor"
The one where ...
Frankie Howerd is hospitalised having fallen on his coccyx ( what else ?! )
Babs Windsor wears that famous heart-shaped bikini ...
Jim Dale hurtles around on that hospital trolley ...
... and Gordon pops up at the end !
And I've picked this one largely because it's typical of the screen roles he got.
But it's also pertinent because it's from 1967,and was shot in the same year that he recorded The Herbs,when he was 41.
He plays the "Night Porter".
And as all the patients march to Dr.Tinkle's office (Kenny Williams),he gets a few lines of protestation before Bernie Bresslaw peels off and pins him to his counter with that glass screen above his head.
On this page ..... A little homage to the voice behind both series.
Even if you were a big fan of the 2 Herbs series,there's a pretty good chance you'd look blankly
at me if I mentioned the name Gordon Rollings.
But his is the only voice you ever hear throughout both series.
Not that he should really need any introduction from the likes of me.
Because if you narrated a kids' animation show from the mid 60's to the mid 70's,you really couldn't help but be absorbed into the consciousness of millions of kids.
As there were still only 3 tv channels,and none of the major counter-attractions we know today like the internet, mobile phones etc
But whilst "golden era" contemporaries like Brian "Camberwick" Cant and Oliver Postgate ( Bagpuss,Clangers, Pogles ) have subsequently been canonised for their work,Gordon's part in British animation history has been largely overlooked.
Born in Batley in 1926 his professional life is best described as that of a "jobbing actor".
But whilst most actors all over the world spend the majority of their career "resting" ....
Gordon certainly wasn't one of them !
He was out there grafting,filling all sorts of minor roles in tv and films.Which he combined with
theatre work and commercials,where he did both on-screen performances and voiceovers.
And whilst you'd struggle to put a name to the face,you'd more than likely feel you'd seen him
somewhere before,but couldn't quite think where,and in what.
Because whilst he usually had limited screen time,his versatility meant he could pop up anywhere.
And his "little and often" approach invariably meant he did !
His film roles were less auspicious than his tv and theatre work,I think it's fair to say.
And his film cv is dotted with examples like "Man in Cap" in the Superman III movie and,intriguingly,as "Humper" in a 1962 film called "A Weekend With Lulu" -No,not that Lulu,and certainly not that kind of humper !
And it seems the further down the bill you were the more chance you'd suffer a mis-credit.
As he was often listed as "Rawlings" or "Rollins"- a fate that befell him,for example,in Dick Lester's 1969 film,"The Bed Sitting Room" where he appeared in another typical role as "drip-feed patient".
Gordon's son,Justin,has a YouTube channel featuring some of his father's work.
You'll obviously find all the Smith's ones.
But check out the 60's Woodbine ads as well,which make good use of his clown training -and the quality of the footage is excellent too.
Gordon's Internet Movie Database entry,which is effectively his online cv.
The Actor's Compendium,has a similar brief to the IMDB And,last time I looked,Gordon's entry is more complete.
The Herbs
Prior to doing The Herbs,he was best known to an adult audience for his tv work.
With his most notable role being Charlie Moffit in the Coronation Street of the mid 60's. Link
But in his formative adult years he actually trained to be a professional clown,as this photo and small accompanying article also reveals Here
So it's maybe no surprise that such an affinity with kids led him to enjoy a brief stint as one of the early presenters of the BBC's iconic "Play School" series,which started in 1964 -a role he shared with Brian Cant among others,who was also a jobbing tv and stage actor of course.
All of which meant that when he recorded the voiceovers for The Herbs,in 1967,he was arguably as well known as he ever would be ( until the late-in-life John Smiths ad campaign.)
But,I doubt even avid young followers of Play School would have connected the voice to the face.
Particularly as he spent a lot of his Herbs time using accents for the character's rather than his normal voice.
Which was actually very unusual among his Watch With Mother voiceover contemporaries,who just relied on intonation to differentiate.
So he undoubtedly gets the prize for the best all-round,virtuoso performance.
I don't know how he felt about the anomaly of voicing such a successful series whilst gaining very little recognition for actually doing so.
But there's no denying that the absence of a face behind the voices did remove any link with day-to-day reality,which helped to make the Herb garden seem that much more of a secret world within a world.
And something that also helped Basil Brush enormously,because no-one had a clue who Ivan Owen was.
Which Owen fully embraced by going to great lengths to avoid being photographed or interviewed.
In fact,so successfully that he still remains one of the greatest "unknown" heroes of UK kids' tv,even today... as an unrewarding Google search will testify !
Of course the association with an entire Herbal cast rather than just one character meant there was far less to be gained by anonymity.And even less after a sufficient amount of time had elapsed since the series initial impact.
So the real sadness about Gordon's role is that he not only went under the radar at the time,but also missed out on the retrospective plaudits handed out during the kids tv nostalgia boom,as he succumbed to cancer in 1985.
But his part in that golden age of BBC animation should never be forgotten ... or under-estimated.
And his last big on-screen role arguably surpassed the recognition he got from his time on Coronation Street ....
John Smith's Ad Campaign
The role that many will remember him for most actually came in the last years of his life.
Playing a dour Yorkshire stereotype called "Arkwright" in a series of John Smiths Beer tv commercials,complete with a Jack Russell called "Tonto".
A brand that was later to be plugged by the likes of Jack Dee and Peter Kay.
And it seems fitting to end with one of the printed ads,below.
Because the irony of the slogan is that it applies just as much to the actor as the character of course.
