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Stanley James Carroll "Jimmy" Beck (21 February 1929 – 6 August 1973) was an English actor best remembered for his role as Private Joe Walker, the cockney spiv in the popular BBC sitcom ''Dad's Army''. ==Early life== James Beck was born in Islington, North London and attended Popham Road Primary School. His childhood was hard, with his father frequently unemployed and his mother making artificial flowers to provide a small income. After attending art college and doing his national service in the army, Beck took up acting. His early roles included Charlie Bell in an episode of ''Dr. Finlay's Casebook'' (Conduct Unbecoming - 1962), and Shylock in ''The Merchant of Venice'' in 1963, for which he gained positive reviews. Moving to London, he concentrated on television, and was cast as a policeman in a 1967 episode of ''Coronation Street'' involving a now well-known storyline concerning a train crash. He also appeared as an uncredited policeman in ''Gideon's Way'' (1965), and was regularly seen in TV drama, with one-off roles in series such as ''The Troubleshooters'' (1965, 1967, 1970) and the BBC's ''Sherlock Holmes'' series with Peter Cushing in the lead ("The Blue Carbuncle", 1968). In 1968 he was offered the role of Private Walker in ''Dad's Army'', originally written by Jimmy Perry for himself. Perry approved of the casting of Beck: "He had the right mix of cheekiness and charm. He gave the role a bit of oomph."〔Neil Clark ("James Beck: the Dad’s Army star cut off in his prime" ), telegraph.co.uk, 6 August 2013〕 While popular in the role, Beck yearned for the challenge of other roles. Always in demand, he continued to work on TV programmes including ''A Family at War'' (1970) and ''Romany Jones'' (1972-73), in which he played the lead character of Bert Jones. He also recorded a pilot for an uncommissioned series called ''Bunclarke With an E'' (1973),〔 to be based on scripts originally written for ''Hancock's Half Hour'', performing with Arthur Lowe. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Beck」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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