Stanley Unwin was born in June 1911, Pretoria in South Africa. His parents emigrated from the UK to Pretoria in the early 1900s. His father died in 1914, and his mother and family returned to England, sending Unwin to the National Children's Home in Congleton, Cheshire. By the late 1920s, he studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London in television, radio and languages.
Married in 1937 to wife Frances, he gave birth to his son and two daughters. In 1940, he worked at the BBC as a transmission maintainer in Borough Hill in Daventry. This is how he began to make his career...
Whilst testing for some equipment, he made an accidental transmission to broadcaster F.R "Buck"Buckley, an ad-libbed comedy called "Fasche", speaking in his Unwinese. After receiving positive reviews of his Unwinese, another sketch followed as he played a man from Atlantis. Receiving a letter from his first fan mail, Joyce Grenfell was Unwin's heroine. After being impressed by the performance, she encouraged him to break into show-businesses.
In fact, what Stanley Unwin was speaking was a mangled form of English in which many of the words where the words play in a humorous and playful manner. It is believed that his Unwinese may have been inspired in part by the Lewis Carrol poem "Jabberwocky". However, as it would prove, the Unwinese would not play out well for one of his future shows.
Unwin's next breakthrough was when he met producer Roy Speer and comedian Ted Ray, Ray began talking to Unwin and said "I want him in the series". The series that would of course be The Spice of Life. Eventually, Unwin was able to work himself in the film industry and would star in the Cardew Robinson film Fun at St. Fanny's (1956). Further works would include Carry on Regardless (1961), Press For Time (1966), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). When of course Stanley Unwin was at Pinewood Studios filming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where he bumped into Gerry Anderson and would later be the star of his own SUPERMARIONATION series, The Secret Service. Unwin would still appear in TV advertisements, radio footage and parodies. In 1987, he appeared in The Prisoner spoof The Laughing Prisoner. In 1998, he made a cameo appearance in the Aardman Animation production Rex The Runt, playing an accountant who would sometimes break into the actor's unwinese.
"Professor" Stanley Unwin died in January 2002 in Danetre Hosptial, Daventry. His death brought an end to an incredible career in show-business, he is buried in Long Buckby in the Daventry District. He will forever not only be remembered in the Anderson legacy, but also in show-biz as a whole. However, The Secret Service stands out in his career as Unwin not only playing the lead character but also to for him to have a series based around him in something that little actors can enjoy.
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The Secret Service: The Vault
Non-FictionThe Secret Service was a 1960s British children's TV series created by Gerry Anderson and the team of Century 21 studios in Slough, from the makers of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Space: 1999. This was the final of his television series to feat...
