Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Jeremy Hawk

Tuesday 05 February 2002 01:00 GMT
Comments

Cedric Joseph Lange (Jeremy Hawk), actor: born Johannesburg 20 May 1918; three times married (two daughters); died Reading, Berkshire 15 January 2002.

In the golden age of television, Jeremy Hawk was a familiar face as straight man to Benny Hill, Sid Caesar, Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom and Arthur Haynes, and presenter of the popular Criss Cross Quiz.

The ITV game-show, which began in 1957, made him one of the quiz kings of the small screen, alongside Michael Miles and Hughie Green. He earned a reported £300 a week for hosting the thrice-weekly programme that was a British version of America's Tic Tac Dough. Two contestants battled with each other to answer general-knowledge questions and complete lines diagonally, vertically or horizontally with noughts or crosses. There was £20 at stake for each question and, with no limit on prize money at the time, one contestant walked away with £2,360.

Hawk was born Cedric Joseph Lange in Johannesburg in 1918, the son of a South African film star who acted under the name Douglas Drew. When the boy was two, his parents divorced, and he returned to Britain with his mother, June, who married a Yorkshire wool merchant, John Moore.

At Harrow School, Lange gained an interest in the theatre through his friendship with the cricket team captain, Terence Rattigan, who was later to make his mark as a playwright. Although he worked in his stepfather's wool business for a short time on leaving school, Lange was intent on acting and trained at Rada. Liking the name Jeremy and adding to it his nickname, "Hawk" – after his prominent nose – he adopted the stage name Jeremy Hawk.

In 1936, at the age of 18, he made his professional début as the boy Travers in Ian Hay's play The Housemaster, at the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield. After war broke out, Hawk became a regular in the New Faces revue at London's Comedy Theatre (1940), which established him as a comedy performer. He subsequently acted Albert in Ladies in Retirement (St Martin's Theatre, 1941) and, after serving with the Army in North Africa and Italy, and entertaining the troops with Ensa, continued to appear in West End comedies for almost 50 years.

Playing Dr Sanderson, the comedian Sid Field's foil, in the long-running Harvey (Prince of Wales Theatre, 1949) demonstrated Hawk's talent as a straight man. This was used to its best effect in The Benny Hill Show, which began on BBC television in 1955, and Sid Caesar Invites You (1958), a British version of one of the American comedian's domestic shows.

Then, Hawk was chosen by Granada Television to host Criss Cross Quiz (1957-62), which became the third most popular programme nationwide in the year in which it began. He also presented the weekly Junior Criss Cross Quiz (1957-62), aimed at 12- to 14-year-olds. Although both shows continued until 1967, he left after five years. "Television producers pigeon-holed me as a quizmaster, so I went back to theatre," he said.

Hawk's appearances in The Benny Hill Show had led to his acting in Hill's first film, the Ealing Studios comedy Who Done It? (1955), in which the star played an ice-rink sweeper who sets himself up as a private detective. Previously, Hawk had taken small roles on screen and subsequently played an instructor in Dentist in the Chair (1960), a professor in Dentist on the Job (1961), an admiral in Mystery Submarine (1963), a bank manager in the crime drama The Trygon Factor (1963) and an elderly priest in Stealing Heaven (Clive Donner's beautifully shot story of the 12th-century lovers Abelard and Héloise, 1988). Hawk also appeared in the 1957 Boulting Brothers comedy Lucky Jim. His last role was as one of the queen's bishops in the acclaimed film Elizabeth (1998).

After Criss Cross Quiz, his only regular television programme was Impromptu, a forerunner to the ad-libbed Whose Line Is It Anyway? The 1964 series, one of BBC2's earliest, was an unscripted comedy show, devised by the producer David Croft, in which Hawk, as the "Boss Man", handed out cards to five cast members giving them their characters, situations and first lines.

His subsequent television roles were character parts in series such as The New Avengers (1976), The Professionals (1978), the sitcom Sorry! (1987) and Agatha Christie's Poirot (1992), but he became a celebrity again after appearing in a 1970s commercial for Cadbury's Whole Nut chocolate, which featured a catchy ditty about "Nuts, whole hazelnuts".

He also guest-starred in 2point4 children (1996), the BBC sitcom that featured Belinda Lang – his daughter from his second marriage, to the actress Joan Heal – as Bill Porter, the wife and mother balancing domestic duties with her work as a baker's assistant. A year earlier, Lang had spoken of her wish for him to act alongside her. "I hate the fact that you can be a lovely actor and suddenly nobody has heard of you, because the casting directors are all so young," she said. "We live in a youth culture, and I think I find it more offensive than he does."

Anthony Hayward

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in