Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE (18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010) was an English actor who worked prolifically on stage, screen and radio in a career that spanned seventy years.

Born in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but his studies—and the early stages of his career—were curtailed by the Second World War.

He was the eldest child of Kate (née Gillett) and her husband Arthur Denholm Carmichael, an optician on the premises of his family's firm of jewellers.

[5] His infant education included one term at the local Froebel House School when he was four, but this was curtailed after his parents were shocked at the "alarmingly foul language he began bringing home", according to Alex Jennings, Carmichael's biographer in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

[12][13] Carmichael enjoyed his time at RADA, including the fact that women outnumbered men on his course, which he described as "heady stuff" after his boys-only boarding school.

[16] He recalled the experience as "a dull play performed in a cold and uninspiring theatre and my particular contribution required absolutely no acting talent whatsoever".

[21][22] At the end of training manoeuvres in November 1941, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, Carmichael was struggling to close the hatch of his Valentine tank when it slammed down, cutting off the top of a finger on his left hand.

[30] The corps' company was also joined by actors from Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA); Carmichael did not often appear on stage with them, but worked as the producer of twenty shows.

[33] From 1948 he also began appearing in films, including Bond Street (1948), Trottie True and Dear Mr. Prohack (both 1949); these early roles were minor parts and he was uncredited.

[3] He received a positive review in the industry publication The Stage, which reported that he "hits the bull's-eye" for his comic performance in one sketch, "Bank Holiday", which involved him undressing on the beach under a mackintosh.

In a 1954 interview in The Stage, he said "I'm afraid that managers and directors may think of me only as a revue artist, and much as I enjoy acting in sketches I feel there must be a limit to the number of characters one is able to create.

[37] Between November 1954 and May 1955 he appeared as David Prentice in the stage production of Simon and Laura alongside Roland Culver and Coral Browne at the Strand Theatre, London.

He played Robin Cartwright, an officer in the Guards, and spent much of his screen time appearing with Richard Wattis; the two men provided an element of comic relief in the film, with what Fairclough describes as a "Flanagan and Allen tribute act".

[39] The Colditz Story was Carmichael's ninth film role and he had, Fairclough notes, risen to sixth in the credits behind John Mills and Eric Portman.

[52] From June to September 1956 Carmichael was involved in the filming of Brothers in Law, which was directed by Roy Boulting; others in the cast included Attenborough and Terry-Thomas.

"[60] Carmichael then appeared in a fourth film with the Boultings, Happy Is the Bride, a lightweight comedy of manners released in March 1958 which also included Janette Scott, Cecil Parker, Terry-Thomas and Joyce Grenfell.

The journalist R. B. Marriott described it as a "slightly crazy, wonderfully ridiculous comedy",[62] and it had a five-week tour around the UK which preceded a run at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, between December 1957 and August 1958.

Several other actors from Private's Progress also reprised their roles: Price (as Bertram Tracepurcel); Attenborough (as Sidney De Vere Cox) and Terry-Thomas (as Major Hitchcock).

[68][69] Although Sellers received most of the plaudits for the film, Carmichael was given good reviews for his role, with The Illustrated London News saying he was "in excellent fooling" and "delicious both at work and at play".

[81] In August 1964 the BBC approached Carmichael to discuss the possibility of his taking the role of Bertie Wooster—described by Fairclough as "the misadventuring, 1920s upper-class loafer"—for adaptations of the works of P. G. Wodehouse.

[83][84] Carmichael negotiated a fee of 500 guineas (£525) per half-hour episode, and assisted in finding the right person for Jeeves, eventually selecting Dennis Price.

[93] In September 1970 Carmichael was the lead role in Bachelor Father, a sitcom loosely based on the true story of a single man who fostered twelve children.

[94][f] The media historian Mark Lewisohn thought that the programme, "although ostensibly a middle-of-the-road family sitcom of no great ambition, came over as a polished and professional piece of work that pleased audiences over two extended series".

[98] Clive James, reviewing for The Observer, described Carmichael as "an extremely clever actor", and thought he was "turning in one of those thespian efforts which seem easy at the time but which in retrospect are found to have been the ideal embodiment of the written character".

Carmichael appeared as Caldicott alongside Arthur Lowe's character Charters, two cricket-obsessed English gentlemen; the roles were played in the original by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford.

[110] He undertook his last stage role in June 1995, playing Sir Peter Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

[113] In late March 1941, when Carmichael's regiment was posted to Whitby he met "Pym"—Jean Pyman Maclean—who he described as "blonde, just eighteen, five feet six, sensationally pretty and a beautiful dancer"; he thought her personality was "warm ... genuine.

[3] Carmichael learned much of his technique from the thirty-week tour of The Lilac Domino he undertook in the late 1940s, where he appeared opposite the comic actor Leo Franklyn.

[122][124] Carmichael acknowledged the credit for his development as a light comic actor went "in its entirety to the training, coaxing and encouragement of ... Franklyn",[124] who "showed me how to time my laughs and how to play an audience".

[95] The image he portrayed in many of his works was summarised by one obituarist as "the affable, archetypal silly ass Englishman" with a "wide-eyed boyish grin, bemused courtesy and hapless, trusting manner".