An early clipping shows Bert Carson and the Little Wonder (then aged seven) taking part in an audition concert at the Harewood Working Men's Club in January 1933.

Working with Hylton, Wise made his London debut in January 1939 at the Princes' Theatre in the "Band Waggon" stage show and received a very good review.

A change of name followed in the autumn: after agreeing that the combination of their respective places of birth—Morecambe and Leeds—would make the act sound too much like a cheap day return, they settled on "Morecambe and Wise".

Both continued to work in theatre comedy during the Second World War until late 1943, when Morecambe went down a coal mine at Accrington (as a Bevin Boy) and Wise served in the Merchant Navy.

On 1 January 1985, he made what was publicised as the first public mobile phone call in the UK, from St Katharine Docks, East London, to Vodafone's Headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire.

He was a guest several times on Countdown, had a gardening column in the News of the World newspaper and also appeared in several West End plays, including The Mystery Of Edwin Drood in 1987.

Those interviewed were John Thaw, Roy Castle (who was to die later that year), Diana Rigg, Hale and Pace, and Fry and Laurie.

In August 1998, Wise was asked by the BBC to take part in Bring Me Sunshine: The Heart and Soul of Eric Morecambe, which was shown on 23 December that year.

[citation needed] Wise died from heart failure and a chest infection at the Nuffield Hospital, Wexham, near Slough, on the morning of 21 March 1999.

[16] In March 2010, Wise's widow Doreen unveiled a statue of him in his home town of Morley, West Yorkshire, where he won a talent contest in 1936.