Bradford's contribution to the world of film has been more as a location than as a provider of stars - Billy Liar, Room at the Top and the like - though there have been some notable local names.

Michael Rennie, star of The Day the Earth Stood Still, was once an insurance man in the city. It also produced Wilfred Lawson (born Worsnop), actor and carouser who was allegedly the originator of a famous, unscripted line in Shakespeare.

Arriving on stage the worse for drink was not unusual for Lawson, but on one particular night it was more than usually noticeable, and the audience were not slow to point this out.

Rolling a reddened eye at his tormentors, Lawson promised: 'If you think I'm p---, wait until you see the Duke of Buckingham'.

Bradford has produced genuine big names in the cinema, in directors Tony Richardson and James Hill; and before them there was Walter Forde (pictured above), born a hundred years ago.

Forde, born Thomas Seymour, was Britain's only major talent during the silent cinema era (says Ephraim Katz in the International Film Encyclopaedia).

In the early 1920s he started out by directing and starring in slapstick shorts, none of which seem to have survived.

Showbiz had been taken in with his mother's milk. At the age of two months he was appearing on stage, being thrown through a window by his father in a melodrama called When Lights Are Low.

As he grew, the young man was trained as a dancer, singer, tumbler, violinist and pianist but Seymour senior didn't want to see his lad on the stage.

Instead he found him a job in an insurance company. This lasted a few days, until the office manager found his newest employee juggling with ink pots. Dad was on tour at the time. When he came back, his son was in the business, as a Boy Prodigy Pianist, complete with white tie, tails, and a working grasp of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 2.

Then one night, performing with the Maximillians in Bradford, he fell over the piano stool and got a laugh. This was something new, and he liked it.

Little by little he interspersed more comedy with his performance; and little by little the music disappeared, leaving Forde a comic, pure and simple.

He made it to the West End and then to the film studios, making comedies like What Next?, You'd Be Surprised and Would You Believe It? In the garden of a London suburban house.

He went to Hollywood in 1923 to work for Universal, but returned to England with a homesick wife after a couple of years determined (like many others) to create a significant British film industry.

He succeeded better than most. He teamed up with the comedian Jack Hulbert to make the first talking picture to be seen by Queen Mary - Jack's the Boy was shown for her in 1931 as a charity performance.

The film may not be a TV regular, even on Channel 4, these days, but some of Forde's other productions are still remembered, particular those he made with comedy greats like Arthur Askey (Charley's Big-Hearted Aunt in 1940 and The Ghost Train in 1941), Tommy Handley (It's That Man Again, 1942) and Cardboard Cavalier (1949), Forde's final film, cherished as one of the few surviving performances by the great Sid Field.

Among his serious works were the 1939 version of The Four Just Men, with Hugh Sinclair and Francis L Sullivan.

Director of photography on that was a young Ronald Neame, who went on to film In Which We Serve, Blithe Spirit, The Man Who Never Was, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and perennial TV favourite The Poseidon Adventure.

So Forde really did make his contribution to British films.

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