Tom Walls

Walls spent his early years as an actor, from 1905, mostly in musical comedy, touring the British provinces, North America and Australia and in the West End.

Some of these were screen versions of the successful stage plays, others were specially-written comedies on similar lines, and there were also serious films, particularly later in Walls's career.

[1] He was educated at Northampton County School,[2] after which he tried a variety of jobs, working in Canada for a year and, on his return, joining the Metropolitan Police.

[2] He performed in a concert party and in musical comedy, touring the British provinces and North America as the Jester in The Scarlet Mysteries.

[3] In 1907 he made his West End debut, playing Ensign Ruffler in Sir Roger de Coverley at the Empire, Leicester Square.

[5] His biographer, Sean Fielding, writes, "His forte was the portrayal of amiable philanderers or eccentric older gentlemen, usually with a forceful, even hectoring manner.

[3] Walls and Lynn co-starred in the Aldwych productions, and Travers was careful to maintain the equilibrium of their stage partnership by ensuring that each had as many funny lines as the other.

[6] Walls gathered a regular troupe of supporting actors, including Robertson Hare, Mary Brough and Winifred Shotter.

Travers wrote for these players, drawing on their strengths, his plays populated by: the horsy, cunning Tom Walls; the silly ass Ralph Lynn, always dropping his monocle; the bald, clerkish, respectable Robertson Hare always liable at some point in the play to have his trousers removed for perfectly logical reasons; the slim, pretty Winifred Shotter, equally liable to dash across the stage in her underclothes; and Mary Brough, the gruff, suspicious landlady.

Walls usually outranked Lynn in the top ratings, because, in the words of the critic Jeffrey Richards, "everyone warmed to the old reprobate whereas the 'silly ass' was not to everyone's taste.

"[11] Walls continued to act on screen in both comedies and dramas until his death, often playing character roles in other directors' films.

[17] His last stage appearance was in 1948, in a revival of The Barretts of Wimpole Street, in which his performance as the tyrannical Edward Moulton-Barrett was thought to lack menace.