JohnLe Mesurier

By the time World War II broke out, he was already an established repertory player.

In 1939, he married actress June Melville, but the couple parted in 1947. Notching up numerous small film parts, he then wed Hattie Jacques in 1949, whom he met while visiting the Players Theatre in Villiers Street, near Charing Cross, London.

Roles in the radio series of Hancock's Half Hour established him as a fine comedy perfomer, and so it was unsurprising when he was later cast in the star's TV shows.

He parted with Jacques in 1965, only to marry Joan Malin that same year.

In 1968, he took on his most famous role, as the upper-class Sergeant Arthur Wilson in Dad's Army.

Le Mesurier died in 1983, having taken out a self-penned notice in the Times, declaring he'd "conked out".