Michael Ward was born George William Everard Yeo on April 9th, 1909, in the village of Carmenellis, Cornwall. As the son of a clergyman, his family moved frequently, which he detested as an only child. It wasn't until 1930, when the family settled in Caddington, near Luton, that he got the chance to make friends and become independent.
Between 1930 and 1945, Michael worked as a private tutor and later as an ambulance driver during the war years. After the war, he chose acting, abandoning his initial passion to become a concert pianist, and won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Upon completing the course, he began auditioning and landed the role as understudy to comedian Vic Oliver in The Night and the Music at the Coliseum in 1946. This marked the beginning of a long career in supporting roles, comprising nearly seventy films, twenty West End shows, and over two hundred television appearances.
In 1947, Michael secured his first film role in An Ideal Husband, directed by Alexander Korda, starring Paulette Goddard. The film received positive reviews and served as a springboard for Michael's screen career. Between 1947 and 1960, he starred in thirty films, making him one of the country's busiest and best-known character actors.
The year 1961 brought Michael to a wider audience, playing the photographer in Carry On Regardless. He went on to appear in several more Carry On films, including Carry On Cabbie, Carry On Cleo, Carry On Screaming, and Carry On Don't Lose Your Head.
The British Film Institute credited Michael with delivering one of the funniest one-liners in British film history, as the effete gentleman in tweeds who alights from Kenneth Connors' black cab. He also appeared in four Norman Wisdom comedies and dozens of other films.
Eventually, television became the primary source of his later career, with appearances ranging from Hancock's Half Hour, The Jack Benny Show, Steptoe and Son, Sykes, and Rising Damp, as well as The Avengers, The Two Ronnies, and The Dick Emery Show. He was most notably cast as Adrian, the comedy duo's extremely camp next-door neighbor, in Morecambe and Wise.
After making his last screen appearance in 1978's Revenge of the Pink Panther, Michael suffered a stroke, forcing him to retire. He passed away on November 8th, 1997, at St Mary's Hospital, Ladbroke Grove, London, at the age of eighty-eight.
