Actor and star of The Vicar of Dibley

Born: March 28, 1929;

Died: November 15, 2018

JOHN Bluthal, who has died aged 89, was an actor who, in a career spanning 70 years and two continents, never once gave a stale or lacklustre performance. He was best known as one of the seemingly staid parishioners in The Vicar Of Dibley (which ran on the BBC from 1994 to 2007), and prior to that as a Jewish tailor with an Irish partner in Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Width (ITV, 1967-71). Bluthal undertook both sitcoms with the same dedication he gave to Antony and Cleopatra, with Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench and directed by Peter Hall, at the National Theatre in 1987.

The diminutive, dark-haired and wide-eyed Bluthal was mobile and expressive in face and body. Fascinated by accents, he played countless nationalities, often Americans or Mediterraneans. His start in life was suitably cosmopolitan. Born in a Polish village that is now in the Ukraine, he arrived in Australia aged nine.

In 1948, he was in Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty at the New Theatre in Melbourne, and while studying drama at the city’s university, often acted at its Union Theatre. Bluthal also directed, at the Attic Theatre, Sydney in 1957. He did Who?, an improvised series of spoof five-minute interviews, much repeated as schedule fillers by ABC TV.

Having worked with Michael Bentine in 1955 at the Tivoli, Melbourne, one of Bluthal’s first credits after arriving in London, with his wife and family in 1960, was Bentine’s show It’s A Square World (BBC, 1961-3).

In between enjoying playing billiards, Bluthal was one of the voices Tony Hancock heard as The Radio Ham (1961); he also supported Hancock’s former partner Sid James in Citizen James (BBC, 1960), and his ITV equivalent in The Arthur Haynes Show (1962).

After taking over from Ron Moody as Fagin in Oliver!, in the West End for 15 months from 1961, Bluthal had several roles, including an Underwater Vicar, in Spike Milligan and John Antrobus’ The Bed Sitting Room (Mermaid, 1963). He became a regular support in Milligan’s free-form sketch shows, often deploying imitations of Hughie Green, W. C. Fields and Huw Wheldon, from Milligan’s Wake (ITV, 1965) and Q5 to Q9 (BBC, 1969-80).

His best-remembered film was as a beggar with a ‘minkey’, as Peter Sellers as Clouseau pronounced it, in Return of the Pink Panther (1974). For Richard Lester, he tried to steal a car in A Hard Day’s Night (1964); he plotted to cut off Ringo’s finger in Help! (1965); and he witnessed the Leaning Tower of Pisa being straightened in Superman III (1983). In TV plays, Bluthal was a would-be Philip Marlowe in Meriel, the Ghost Girl (BBC, 1976), then North of England in Jack Rosenthal’s Spaghetti Two-Step (ITV, 1977).

His Dibley character Frank Pickle was gently revealed as gay, in a broadcast only overheard by Geraldine Granger (Dawn French). Bluthal’s later films included Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997) and the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016). His last work was By Any Other Name, a short by his daughter Lisa. She survives him along with another daughter.

GAVIN GAUGHAN