Harry H. Corbett

Corbett and his wife Maureen had two children, one of whom, Susannah Corbett, is an actress, best known for the role of Ellie Pascoe in the BBC's television adaptations of Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe detective novels. His very brief career, lifestyle, bisexuality, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed James Dean into a cult object and pop icon of apparently timeless fascination. He had died of a massive heart attack in the March of that year, at the age of fifty-seven. Many teenagers of the time modeled themselves after him, and his death cast a pall on many members of his generation. Corbett's final acting role was in an episode of the Anglia Television anthology drama series Tales of the Unexpected, shot before his death and eventually transmitted two months afterwards, in May 1982. Dean epitomized the rebellion of 1950s teens, especially in his role in Rebel Without a Cause. As with many other British comedy programmes of the era, there were also two theatrically-released Steptoe and Son films: Steptoe and Son (1972) and Steptoe Rides Again (1973). He is one of only five people to be nominated for Best Actor for his first feature role, and the only person to be nominated twice after his death.

Steptoe and Son did lead to Corbett gaining some work in comedy films, most notably starring in Carry On Screaming in 1966 and appearing in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977). He is buried in Park Cemetery in his home town of Fairmount, Indiana. A subsequent tour of a Steptoe and Son stage show in Australia in the late 1970s proved to be a complete disaster, as any sort of working relationship between the pair of them was now impossible. This occurred before the release of Giant. Production on the series was also made stressful by Corbett's strained relationship with his co-star Brambell, and by the end of their time on the series they were not on speaking terms outside of takes. Dean died in a road accident in a Porsche 550 Spyder near Salinas, California when a car driven by Donald Turnupseed veered into Dean's lane. Although the enormous popularity of Steptoe and Son - as the series was titled - made Corbett a star, it proved to be a dead-end to his serious acting career, as he became irreversibly associated with the Harold Steptoe character in the public eye. He followed this up in rapid succession with two more starring roles, in Rebel Without a Cause, and in the 1956 release Giant, for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award.

The play was a huge success and a full series was soon commissioned, which eventually ran, with some breaks, until 1974. He appeared in several uncredited bit roles in such forgettable films as Sailor Beware, but finally gained recognition and success in 1955 in his first starring role, that of Cal Trask in East of Eden, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag and bone man living with his irascible father Albert, played by Wilfrid Brambell, in a junkyard with only their horse for company. During his New York period he spent time in Sayville and the resort towns of Fire Island. In 1962 he appeared in The Offer, an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, Comedy Playhouse, written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. His rave reviews in André Gide's The Immoralist led to his being called back to Hollywood and film stardom. He also guested regularly in television dramas, appearing in episodes of popular series such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (as four different characters in four different episodes between 1957 and 1960) and Police Surgeon, the series that would later become The Avengers (in 1960). His career turned around and Dean did several episodes of such early-1950s episodic television programs such as Kraft Television Theater, Danger, and General Electric Theater.

From 1958 he began to appear regularly in film roles, first coming to public attention as a very serious, intense performer, completely in contrast to the reputation he would later gain as a sitcom actor. While there he was accepted to study under Lee Strasberg in the storied Actors Studio. When asked, he would often joke that the 'H' stood for "h'anything" - a manner of saying the word 'anything' once popular in some English regional dialects. Following the advice of friends, Dean moved to New York to pursue a career in live stage acting. In the early 1950s he added the middle initial 'H' to his name in order to avoid confusion with the then-popular television entertainer Harry Corbett, who was well known for his act with the puppet Sooty. He quit college to focus on his budding career, but he struggled to get jobs in Hollywood and only succeeded in paying bills by working as a parking lot attendant. Corbett himself served in the army during the Second World War, and following his discharge after the war's conclusion he took up acting as a career, initially in repertory theatre. Dean began his career with a soft drink commercial followed by a bit part in the television series, Hill Number One.

When he was very young his mother died, and Corbett was sent back to England where he was raised by an aunt in Manchester. The resulting parental fight left Dean once again being turned out of his father's house. His father was an officer in the British Army who was stationed in the country as part of the occupying forces there. After struggling with law, against his father's wishes, Dean changed his major to drama after transferring to UCLA. Corbett was born in Burma, now Myanmar, while it was still a British colony. While there, he enrolled in Santa Monica City College, pledged Sigma Nu fraternity and majored in pre-law. Early in his career he was dubbed "the English Marlon Brando" by some sections of the British press, but due to typecasting his career never really developed as a major film actor, much to his frustration. After graduating from Fairmont High School in 1949, Dean moved back to California to live with his father and stepmother.

Corbett (1925-1982) (born Harry Corbett on February 28, 1925 in Rangoon, Burma; died March 21, 1982 in Hastings, East Sussex, England, UK) was a British actor, who was best known for his starring role in the hugely popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s. In high school, Dean played on the school basketball team and participated in forensics debate and drama. Harry H. Then, at age nine, Dean's father sent him back to live with relatives on a farm near Fairmount, Indiana where he was raised with a Quaker upbringing. While there, Dean was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940. The family moved to Santa Monica, California six years later after Winton left farming to become a dental technician.