Don Estelle

At 70 years old, Don Estelle has this physical status:

Don Estelle (22 May 1933 – August 2, 2003) was a British actor and singer best known as Gunner "Lofty" Sugden in It Ain't Half Hot Mum.

Early life

Born Ronald Edward Edwards of Crumpsall, Lancashire (formerly part of Lancashire), he was born in a house on Russell Street in the town. He was evacuated to Darwen, Lancashire, during the Second World War at the age of eight to escape the Manchester Blitz. On returning home after the war, he found his voice as a Boy soprano at the local Holy Trinity Parish Church, and continued to perform at St Mary's Church, Crumpsall. He later joined the Manchester Kentucky Minstrels, a charity group that performed "Granada" in the 1954 talent competition What Makes a Star? In Manchester, BBC Radio's northern studios are located.

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Career

Estelle started singing one song 12 times a week in the show The Backyard Kids at the Hulme Hippodrome in Manchester. In 1962 at the Garrick Theatre in London, he met Windsor Davies, and the two men formed an act that toured theatres and clubs for four years. Estelle played small parts in Dad's Army (playing a Pickfords removals man in one 1969, episode and an ARP warden named Gerald in 1970). He eventually starred in the sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum, which was first broadcast in January 1974 and continued with Davies until September 1981, reuniting him with Davies. In the storylines, his Sergeant Major character mocked Lofty. Because of Estelle's 4 ft 9 in (145 cm) stature, the character was given the ironic name Lofty.

With a semi-comic version of "Whispering Grass" that hit number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1975, Estelle had a top tenor voice, Sing Lofty (1976), and Sing Lofty, a top tenor (1976). In addition to Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), Estelle appeared in Not Now, Comrade (1976) and A Private Function (1984), in addition to Elvis Claus: The Movie (1985), a film co-star.

He made brief appearances in two episodes as Little Don, the keeper of the Roundabout Zoo, a zoo on a traffic island, in the first series of The League of Gentlemen. He appeared in a brief history of timewasting as Little Don of the East End Art Mafia in 2001.

Estelle was bitter about modern-day entertainment companies, calling them "tight-crutched, white-trousered morons" in his autobiography, Thoughts Of A Gemini (1999). "Estelle cut a marginally sad figure in recent years, dressed in his 'Lofty' outfit, establishing a stall of his tapes, and singing to passers-by in shopping malls," he said. In the promotional video for The Sun Page Three Girl Jo Hicks' single "Yakety Sax" in 2001 (based on The Benny Hill Show), he appeared as a "dirty old man." Estelle made a duo album with Sir Cyril Smith, later becoming the former MP for Rochdale. In 1999, the six-track CD, which contained "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine," was available by mail-order.

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