I'll post this here, for it wasn't through the cinema that I discovered him, but I've looked him up now and know at last that his career was a sad lacuna in my own cinematographic knowledge. For Bernard Miles, that comcic rural soul who appeared regularly on UK televison nigh on 50 years ago (playing the character role of a country local with a piece of straw in his mouth and standing beside a cartwheel) is none other than the 'orrible vilain-of-the-piece in Alfred Hitchcock's fine film "The Man Who Knew Too Much". (Clearly not an accurate description of me in this particular instance, because I was completely unaware of the fact. But am I the only one?)

He was also one of the two story writers for the script of the Will Hay film The Goose Steps Out [1942]. Not a lot of people know that !

It was a surprise (to me anyway) to find he was not a full time character comedian, not like an early Billy Burdon but a proper actor (and director) and he was a graduate of Oxford University.When he founded the Mermaid Theatre, I remember thinking it couldn't be the same man ! His father had been a farm worker.He himself knew the way farm workers spoke and thought, therefore. I remember an old farm worker here saying to my mother that he couldn't understand what was funny about that Bernard Miles and his stories.She knew why that was, she said later. Bernard Miles' character thought and spoke like that man did

As an aside: Do you ever find yourself wondering why 'Private Frazer' from Dad's Army turns up in old films? He's the crofter in Hitchcock's Thirty Nine Steps, for one. John Laurie had a long and serious career as an actor but was only ever famous for being a misanthropic Scots undertaker in the Home Guard. Such is theatre and TV !

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He was also one of the two story writers for the script of the Will Hay film The Goose Steps Out [1942]. Not a lot of people know that !

And talking of Michael Caine, do you know that his mother used to be a cleaner who used to work with the mother of Adam Faith, years ago? And that neither knew that the other lady had an on-the way-to-be-famous son? Especially as the two lads were known by their real names back then (whatever their real names were... Now there's a trivia question in waiting. So quick, before we look it up

Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite. I don't know the other one.

John Laurie had a long and serious career as an actor but was only ever famous for being a misanthropic Scots undertaker in the Home Guard. Such is theatre and TV !

I once met John Laurie. At least I think I did. It was the day Border TV opened in Carlisle, and this man came out of the studio building and walked over to the hundreds of people waiting behind the barriers. He chatted for a couple of muinutes and then said "Do you want my autograph? I'm John Laurie".
I said no (I mean, I was only a young kid), and he shrugged and turned away.
Even today I'm not sure whether it was an opportunity missed or whether it was some cameraman or someone having a joke at our expense, but it certainly looked like him for I'd already seen him on TV I reckoned, even though this was long before "Dad's Army". He was born near Carlisle too. So near yet so far, as my Dad said when I got home.

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Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite. I don't know the other one.

Adam Faith was one of the original Sixties pop starsin the UK His real name was Terry Nelhams and he had a string of hits ("What Do you Want?" "The First Time", "Lonely Pup", "Message to Martha", "Poor Me, "Who Am I?" and "I Survived" all spring to mind.) He probably didn't make it in the US though.

And Michael Caine is not Sir Michael Caine. He's Sir Maurice Micklewhite, not, as wikipedia claims, because a knight must take his legal name, but because he wanted to keep alive the memory, and surname, of his father.He could have chosen to be Sir Michael Caine because your legal name or names in Britain are whatever names you are generally known by and may, conceivably, not be your birth name.Sir Cliff Richard, another performer, is not Sir Harry Webb, though Harry Webb is his birth name.

We can tell that the writer of Sir Maurice's biography in wikipedia is American. They tell us that the actor was brought up in his mother's Protestant religion No British writer would put that. Who cares? He's an actor, not a bishop !