Recognisable British character actor Norman Bird left school aged 16
and spent six months working in an office before earning a scholarship
at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The Second World War briefly interrupted
his career before Bird was demobbed from the RAF in 1947. He appeared
with repertory companies before joining John
Gielgud's Shakespeare Company as an understudying and toured the
United States, South Africa and Russia. He made his London stage debut
in 1951 and his screen career began shortly afterwards in 1954 with
a brief role in Guy Hamilton's An
Inspector Calls starring Alistair Sim.
During the 1960s he appeared in a collection of films involving lifelong
friends Richard
Attenborough and Bryan Forbes.
These collaborations included Basil
Dearden's The
League of Gentlemen (1960), The
Angry Silence (1960), Whistle
Down the Wind (1961), The
Wrong Box (1966) and The
Raging Moon (1970). Other notable roles included a closet homosexual
being blackmailed in Basil Dearden's
Victim (1961), the commandant of a military stockade in Sidney Lumet's
The Hill (1965),
and the voice of Bilbo Baggins in Ralph Bakshi's animated version of
Lord of the Rings (1978). He made over 60 screen appearances but was
even more prolific on television, claiming to have made over 200 appearances
including Z Cars, Up the Workers, The Saint and Worzel Gummidge; mostly
as henpecked husbands, minor civil servants or police inspectors.
