DING DONG AT HEAVEN’S DOOR!
Goodbyaeee… Reliable cad and premier immortal Leslie Phillips has ding donged his last aged 98. After the 2011 death of his wife Angela Scoular, there were fears feeble Leslie would not be long for this world. By 2017, he had made his last public appearance, but kept carrying on, and on, with cockroach tenacity to the point that a frail 98-year-old dying has managed to be a shocker.
But let’s not let that past decade of immortality distract from his beloved career. Despite the upper-class image he became known for, Phillips himself came from a humble working-class family and his father died when he was 7. Young Leslie’s acting potential was apparent enough that he underwent elocution training to convert his Cockney accent into his iconic posh dialect, and by his teens he was the family breadwinner with appearances in film and at the London Palladium. Following a brief interlude for WWII service, his star rose fast in both film and theatre and became a familiar voice on radio as an inept officer in The Navy Lark.
It was a fairly small role that defined Phillips’s persona. In Carry On Nurse, his horndog patient Jack Bell reacted to a voluptuous nurse with a lustrous “ding dong!” A pun on his character’s surname that intertwined bells and horniness before Chuck Berry, “ding dong” became a trademark for numerous lecherous cads he’d play in the years to come. He appeared in two further Carry On entries, but was ambivalent about the films and declined to appear in further entries (though he’d return decades later for the panned final film). Succeeding Dirk Bogarde in the Doctor comedy film series contributed another catchphrase to the Phillips lexicon, a drawled, flirtatious “hell-ay-o”, and he also starred in a number of rapid comedies with Stanley Baxter.
By the eighties, he felt stalled by being typecast as a posh flirt and turned to dramatic roles with aplomb. He lent supporting roles to well-received Hollywood dramas like Out of Africa and Empire of the Sun, and was BAFTA-nominated for his role opposite Peter O’Toole in Venus. His personal fondest role was his portrayal of Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor on the Stratford stage. He also voiced a hat.
His deadpool legend status in recent years meant Phillips was always going to ring highly with the DDP ranks. He marks a 17th success for this year’s Drop 40, which equals 2020’s record and is a cancer-ridden paedo away from exceeding it. Among those to receive a Leslie fillip include c. a. daver, I’m Sorry For Your Trouble, the old lady, top ten entrant There is no spoon, and a first hit of the year for Dai YaB’stards, Francis of Arse-Easy 2022, and The Forest Lawn Jockeys.
Leslie Phillips
20 April 1924 – 7 November 2022, aged 98
79 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 8 POINTS, 🃏 (x3) 16 POINTS)