Bernard Bresslaw

Pop-eyed British comic actor Bernard Bresslaw appropriately played Popeye, a dimbulbed private on the popular BBC-TV comedy series The Army Game (1957-62). This led to the revitalization of a film career that had begun somewhat ignominiously in 1954's Men of Sherwood Forest. Bresslaw was starred in the tacky but undeniably funny film farce I Only Arsked! (1958) and provided comic support in such films as Too Many Crooks (1959) and The Ugly Duckling (1965). Coming to grips with encroaching baldness, Bresslaw could be seen in older character parts in films like Morgan (1966) and Moon Zero Two (1969). His bag of comic tricks running on empty in the mid 1960s, Bernard Bresslaw sustained his film career by becoming a member of the lunatic "Carry On" ensemble in 14 movies with titles like Carry on Cowboy (1965), Carry on Doctor (1968) and Carry on Dick (1975); he also showed up briefly plying his laugh-grabbing trade in Disney's One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975) and the Monty Pythonesque Jabberwocky (1979). - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide