British character actor Wilfrid Brambell gained national fame late in his career as Albert Steptoe in the BBC’s most popular and successful sitcom, Steptoe and Son, although the character he played was considerably older than he was. He was never one for starring roles but supplied reliable support in a variety of stage, screen, and television roles before Albert Steptoe thrust him into the limelight. Television appearances included a variety of parts in adaptations of classic texts, including The Government Inspector (1958), Bleak House (1959), and Our Mutual Friend (1959), all for the BBC.

Writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wanted to use straight actors, rather than comedians, when casting the leads for their new BBC comedy Steptoe and Son in 1962. Harry H. Corbett was cast as Harold Steptoe, and Brambell given the role of his father Albert. Over the years to follow, the actors and writers together were to develop characters that found their way into the national consciousness.

Albert Steptoe is an old-time rag-and-bone man who inherited the family business of the title from his father and now runs it with his son Harold. Harold goes out on the cart to collect the junk, while Albert remains at home, ostensibly to run the administrative side of the business, but, in reality, to take it easy or go out to the cinema. Albert is a widower. He still has an eye for the ladies, and for the main chance, though generally espousing an old-fashioned morality. He is a veteran of the Great War and bemoans declining standards, but his own behavior is often gross and earthy in the extreme. He rarely washes and, when he does, is liable to eat his evening meal in the bath. His language and behavior are, in Harold’s eyes in particular, uncouth, prompting the description, “You dirty old man!,” the series’ only catchphrase.

Brambell played Albert Steptoe as a grumpy old curmudgeon, capable of resorting to the most pathetic pleading to get his own way. The role of the scruffy old man could not have been further from the rather suave and cultured person Brambell was in real life.

Steptoe and Son ran for four seasons between 1962 and 1965. It regularly attracted audiences of over 20 million, from all sectors of society, and in 1963 a Steptoe and Son sketch was performed by Brambell and Corbett as part of that year’s Royal Variety Performance. Between series and after Galton and Simpson brought it to an end, both Brambell and Corbett were in demand for movie parts because of their great popularity. Among Brambell’s roles were those of Paul McCartney’s grandfather in the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night and the White Rabbit in Jonathan Miller’s 1966 television version of Alice in Wonderland.

Steptoe and Son was revived, in color, by the BBC in 1970 and ran for another four series between then and 1974. There were also two spin-off feature films. The characters and situations had not changed—nor had the quality of writing and performance or the popularity of the show.