Educated at St Nicholas School, London, tough-looking actor David Lodge's
aggressive Londoners were usually leavened with humour. After varied
experience in Gang Shows, a circus and music-hall, he moved into cinema
character roles. He made his film debut in the wartime drama The Cockleshell
Heroes (1955), and there followied an apprenticeship as tough, back-street
types but he soon showed a penchant for comedy, making notable contributions
to several Peter Sellers films including the less than successful safecracker,
Jelly Knight, in Two
Way Stretch (1960). Broader comedy roles in later years were on
the whole less successful, but he remained busy in movies until the
early 1980s.
