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Last of the Summer Wine: Meet Compo's stunt double
You might not recognise him at first but it's odds on you will have seen Ken Hastwell on your television screen more than once.
The 83-year-old former Leeds picture house projectionist spoke to Neil Hudson about rubbing shoulders with some of the silver screen's great and good
Ken Hastwell was sitting at home with his late wife, Amy, watching the Oscars one evening when he suddenly saw himself appear on the screen, playing the role of an objectionable councillor in the 1979 film Yanks, starring Richard Gere.
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The great grandfather, who lives in a former council house in Middleton, Leeds said: "Funnily enough, I was also on the poster for the film. The wife and I had been watching the Oscars one night and they played a clip from the movie and I was in it. I couldn't believe it. I laughed. I said to my wife at the time, 'I always told you I would make Hollywood.'"
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But it wasn't Ken's first, or only, brush with fame.
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Up to the age of 36, Ken worked in cinema houses across Leeds.
He had started out as a rewind boy in the Queen's cinema house in Holbeck at the age of 11, immediately after leaving school. His job was to manually rewind film reels between showings and repair any damage.
But in 1963, aged 36, he decided to chance his arm at something completely different.
"It was the year YTV opened and I decided to have a go at acting, as an extra. I got a part playing the father of the bride in a comedy with Roy Kinnear called Inside George Wobley. We filmed a scene on Burley Road where I bent down and tied Roy's shoelace to a car, which then set off, taking him with it. It went from there.
"I got 5 a time, that was a lot of money in those days.
"Then I appeared in The Flaxton Boys and played a villain alongside James Hayter, better known as the face of Mr Kipling in television adverts."
Ken's acting went from strength to strength. He did work for Granada and has appeared in Coronation Street three times. He was also in the first episode of Emmerdale Farm, has appeared in Taggart, Heartbeat, All Creatures Great and Small (the film and the series), Only Fools and Horses, Open All Hours, and a television dramatisation of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett and that's to say nothing of his film credits.
They include The Railway Children, Waterbabies, Yanks, The Ragman's Daughter and Brothers and Sisters.
He said: "I remember speaking to Richard Gere a few times. I got on well with him. I played a councillor in the film who was glad to see the back of the Yanks.
"I remember very well filming The Railway Children. I spent five weeks on that. I played a waiter on the train who served some wine to William Mervyn, who played Old Gentleman in the film. I can remember now that we had to do a lot of takes because every time the train set off, I would wobble off balance. It took me a while to get used to that.
Stink
"I was in the Waterbabies, alongside James Mason, Billie Whitelaw and Bernard Cribbins. I had three roles in the film. When the film first opens, I am laid in a gutter. Then I was used to stand in for Bernard when they were setting up shots and I also played the part of a rabbit man. I had rabbits strapped to my waist and I just had to walk up and down at a fair. I can remember that after a few days, they started to stink."
But the part viewers are likely to have seen him in most – albeit without realising it – is as Compo's double in Last of the Summer Wine.
"I was about the same size as Bill Owen, so they used to use me for stunts and other shots. If ever you saw Compo's wellies sticking up in the air, that was me. There was also a scene where he was riding a bike with a small wheel at the front and a big one at the back and you see them go past a wall, that was me. If he fell over, or got into any trouble, it's me your watching. I used to do all his stunts."
Ken also appeared in Ripping Yarns, alongside Michael Palin and recalled a grave incident.
He said: "It was about a football team that wasn't very good. Michael was going round getting all the villagers to join it and I played a grave digger. He came and asked me if I would join and I was digging a grave at the time and so from the bottom of this hole in the ground, I grunted yes.
"The moment they had finished the shot, Michael pulled up the ladder, leaving me in the grave with no way of getting out. I must have been in there 20 minutes! It was snowing too.
"They used to play all kinds of practical jokes like that and I just laughed about it and called him a swine when he eventually came back."
Ken's wife Amy died in 2005 aged 77 – one month short of their 60th wedding anniversary. The couple, who met at one of the cinemas where Ken used to work, had two children together and Ken has five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Of his career, he said: "Even at school, I was interested in films. I have done both sides of the coin, if you like, in that I have worked as a projectionist behind the camera and I have also been in front of the camera. I also delivered films for a while too, so I've done pretty much everything, making them, delivering them and showing them."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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