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No.15 David Kossoff Variety Performer (1919 - 2005) 
David Kossoff was born in the East End of London the son of Russian parents. He made his first appearance on stage in 1942 and was invited to join
the BBC Repertory Company in 1945. After taking part in, literally, hundreds
of radio plays he began a stage and film career which won him a BAFTA award
for "A Kid for Two Farthings" and great success as the Jewish tailor in "
The Bespoke Overcoat". The warmth and sincerity of his voice made him a
huge hit reading Bible stories on radio which led to a Sunday evening series
and a number of bestselling books.
He was best known in the 1960s as Alf Larkin the henpecked husband in the
television series "The Larkins" after which he moved into another
successful series "A Little Big Business"
In his later years he toured the halls with several one-man shows with
titles like "One Eyebrow Slightly Up" and "A Funny Kind of Evening with David Kossoff". It was this show he performed at the Kenton on April 27th - 29th 1967. The Henley Standard critic wrote "David Kossoff had the ideal situation " an intimate atmosphere and a packed house at his mercy. His one-man show is not, in effect, one man at all as he seems to fill the stage with his characters so that he almost loses his own identity".
His shows remained "outrageously funny" despite the tragedy of the death
of his son Paul from drug induced heart failure in 1976 and of his wife,
Margaret in 1993.
David died in 2005 aged 85.
The following is an extract from Wikipedia.
David Kossoff (24 November 1919 – 23 March 2005) was a British actor.
Following the death of his son Paul, a rock musician, he became an anti-drug
campaigner. In 1971 he was also actively involved in the Nationwide Festival of
Light protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence, and
advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to re-establishing moral stability
in Britain.
Contents
Kossoff was born in London, the youngest of three children, to poor
Russian-Jewish[2] immigrant parents. His father was a tailor.
Kossoff started working in light entertainment on British television in the
years following World War II. His first stage appearance was at the Unity
Theatre in 1942 at the age of 23. He took part in numerous plays and films. He
was a Member of the Society of Artists and Designers. In addition to this, he
was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
He married Jennie and had two sons, Paul and Simon.
His best known television roles were the hen-pecked husband Alf Larkin in The
Larkins, first broadcast in 1958, and a Jewish furniture maker in A Little Big
Business. Film credits included The Young Lovers (1954 - for which he won a
British Academy Film Award as Most Promising Newcomer to Film), A Kid for Two
Farthings (1955), his role as Morry in The Bespoke Overcoat (1956), Freud's
father in Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) with Larry Parks, Professor Kokintz
in The Mouse that Roared (1959) and its sequel The Mouse on the Moon (1963) with
Bernard Cribbins.
He was also well known for his story telling skills, particularly with regard
to reinterpreting the Bible. His most famous book, also a television series, is
The Book of Witnesses (1971) in which he turned the Gospels into a series of
lively monologues. He also retold dozens of Old Testament and Apocrypha stories
in Bible Stories (1968).
In 1953, he played the character Lemuel "Lemmy" Barnet in the British sci-fi
radio series, Journey Into Space.
Following the death in 1976 of his son Paul, guitarist with the band Free,
Kossoff established the Paul Kossoff Foundation which aimed to present the
realities of drug addiction to children. Kossoff spent the remainder of his life
campaigning against drugs. His one-man stage performance about the death of his
son, and its effect on the family, which he toured in the late 1970s and early
1980s, was both poignant and heartbreaking. He died in 2005 of liver cancer at
age 85.[3] He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium.
His brother Alexander was a radio broadcaster under the name of Alan Keith,
the longest serving and oldest presenter on British radio.
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