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Norman Wisdom: A screen-worn 'Gump' suit, 1953, image 1
Norman Wisdom: A screen-worn 'Gump' suit, 1953, image 2
Lot 53

Norman Wisdom: A screen-worn 'Gump' suit,
1953,

28 June 2017, 12:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

£12,000 - £15,000

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Norman Wisdom: A screen-worn 'Gump' suit,

1953,
comprising a two-piece, black and white dog's tooth check suit, the jacket labelled W. Snape & Son Princes Square Wolverhampton and typewritten Norman Wisdom Esq July 1953, together with an original white shirt, brown striped tie and check cap, all mounted in display case with legend Norman Wisdom 1915-2010 'The Pinewood Years' and with film titles, case 30in x 49¾in (76cm x 126.5cm)

Footnotes

Provenance: The Wisdom family.

Sir Norman Wisdom OBE (1915-2010) is best known for the series of Rank Organisation comedy films, beginning in 1953 with 'Trouble In Store', released in December that year, in which he played the downtrodden, hapless character often known as 'Norman Pitkin' and which Wisdom himself christened 'The Gump'. He was awarded a BAFTA in 1954 for Most Promising Newcomer To Film and his 1950s' films were amongst the biggest UK box office successes of their day. He was also popular in some overseas markets, most famously, and somewhat bizarrely, Albania, where he became a cult figure. His films were amongst the few Western titles allowed to be shown by the country's dictator, Enver Hoxha, who believed them to be a Communist parable of the class war, in which the proletarian 'Norman' struggled against representative characters of capitalism and the aristocracy. Wisdom was eventually made an honorary citizen of Tirana, the country's capital. He received many plaudits in his long career, not least from Charlie Chaplin, who described Wisdom as his 'favourite clown.'

This suit was one of several 'Gump' suits that were worn by Wisdom in the films 'Trouble In Store', 1953, 'One Good Turn', 1954, 'Man Of The Moment', 1955, 'Up In The World', 1956, and 'Just My Luck', 1957. They were also used for several stage shows, 'Sinbad The Sailor On Ice', 1953/4, 'The Palladium Show', 1954/5, and 'Painting The Town', 1955/6.

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