9th October 1900 saw the birth in Edinburgh of Alastair Sim, the actor best known for his character and comedy roles.
He was the youngest of Alexander and Isabella Sim's four children. His father was a tailor who owned his own shop on Lothian Road, it is still a shop selling running gear nowadays.To use a suitable phrase for his father, I like the jib of the man, Alexander was one of a group of professional people in Edinburgh who noted the plight of wounded Veterans returning from the front who had little or no prospects of suitable accommodation or employment ahead of them. They founded the Scottish Veterans Garden City Association during the 1st World War and, under the chairmanship of Lord Salvesen, paid for the construction of houses for the use of returning servicemen.
Alexander Sim was offered, but refused, a knighthood.
For a time, the family lived above the shop, but as Alastair entered school, the business picked up enough that they were able to move to a house in Craigleith. Young Alistair was educated at Bruntsfield Primary, James Gillespie's High School and George Heriot's School. He worked for his father then another Edinburgh tailor but showed little aptitude and decided to enter Edinburgh University, studying analytical chemistry, but his further education was cut short when he was called up to the army. After the war he returned home and announced to his parents he was going to take up acting, this wnet down like a lead balloon and there was a falling out, Alistair left the family home and spent a year in the Scottish Highlands with a group of jobbing workers.
On returning to Edinburgh Sim took post in the burgh assessor's office. In his spare time, he entered poetry reading classes, winning the gold medal for verse speaking at the Edinburgh Music Festival.This led to him taking a job as a Fulton lecturer in elocution at New College, part of the University of Edinburgh.
Alastair Sim began working as a stage actor in 1930, taking on minor roles. His deep talent was soon discovered, and he was cast as Othello that same year. In 1932, he met and married Naomi Plaskill, his muse and wife for life. The couple had one child, a daughter named Merlith. It wasn't long before Sim moved to films in supporting roles. One of his more memorable characters was that of Detective Sergeant Bingham in the film series Inspector Hornleigh. His on-screen presence was so dominant that he has often been credited with "stealing the scene" from the film's star actors.
Throughout the 1940s, Sim was cast in several lead roles; he starred in the thriller Green for Danger, the comedy The Happiest Days of Your Life and Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright, among other major films. One of Sim's better-known portrayals was that of Captain Hook in the production of Peter Pan, a role he reprised six times during his career. In a national cinema poll in 1950, Sim was voted the most popular film actor in Britain.
I think quite a few of us will remember Alastair Sim in a slightly different role to those I have already pointed out, growing up before we had all the TV channels we have now and watching the old black & white films and the classic Belles of St Trinians where he played headmistress Millicent Fritton.
Looking through his other roles, I spotted he played the notorious Dr Knox, not once-but twice. For those who don't know, the doctor of note was a professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University, he paid Messrs Burke & Hare for fresh cadavers to demonstrate the human anatomy at the University.
I mentioned Alistair's father refusing a knighthood, and it pleases me to tell you he too refused the offer of becoming Sir Alistair Sim in the early 70's.
He died of cancer in August 1976, insisting that his body be used for medical research - and that there should be no memorial service for him. His widow lived until 1999; she published a memoir, Dance and Skylark: Fifty Years with Alastair Sim in 1987. There is a plaque, commemorating Sim's birth, outside the Filmhouse Cinema in Lothian Road, Edinburgh, only a short distance from where he was born above his father's shop.
