Career
Lockwood had always wanted to perform on stage. Was orphaned at age 11 and at 14 applied to a job as a dancer in a touring show. He continued to develop his talents and by 18 was given a contract by Jack Hylton as a comedian.
World War II intervened and Lockwood joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and was honourably discharged in 1944. Lockwood returned to performing, working in vaudeville, pantomime, radio and television. In 1949 performed in the Royal Command Performance at the London Coliseum. During the performance he tripped and fell, suffering a bloody nose. His quip to the audience "Well, they told me you wanted blood tonight" was widely reported by the press.
Lockwood came to Australia in 1957 for a ten-week run with the Tivoli Theatre circuit, however after that job finished he remained in Australia for five years. Returned to the UK to play Fagin in Lionel Bart's Oliver! at the New Theatre but once that run finished Lockwood followed his yearnings and returned permanently to Australia.
Lockwood spent a year with television series Sunnyside Up, went to the US to perform in Las Vegas, returned to Australia for a two-year run with classic comedy series The Mavis Bramston Show, and then played the lead role in Canterbury Tales. The role in Number 96 followed in 1972. Lockwood was an original cast member of the series and his character – the bumbling Jewish delicatessen proprietor Aldo Godolfus – was one of the show's most well-known and recognised figures. The character was killed off in a dramatic revamp of the series – the infamous bomb blast storyline – in September 1975.
During the 1980s and 1990s Lockwood made guest appearances in Australian drama series and soap operas. In 1985, he appeared in soap opera Neighbours as Daphne Lawrence's grandfather, Harry Henderson. He guest starred in two 1991 episodes of soap opera E Street. During this period he also acted in feature films.
In the early 2000s Lockwood continued to make television and film appearances including roles in Moulin Rouge! and miniseries The Potato Factory.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Lockwood
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)