A Grand Day Out – Landing on the Moon – Wallace and Gromit
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Peter Sallis was one of Britain’s most celebrated actors with iconic roles in British entertainment like Last of the Summer Wine, a series in which a new programme delves behind the scenes with ‘Last of the Summer Wine: The Story of…’ tonight on Channel 5. Still riding the wave of fame that came from this role, Sallis was contacted by a struggling film student who wanted the star to be the voice of his newly created children’s film character Wallace.
At the time of his death in 2017, Sallis was believed to have been worth an incredible $10million (£8.29million), a figure accumulated through over 150 acting credits and his tenure as the lead Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine.
That show in particular ran for an incredible 31 series, lasting from 1983 to 2010, with Sallis being the only actor in the cast to appear in every single episode.
Near the start of the series, in 1984, Sallis took on another acting role outside of Holmfirth, when film student Nick Park requested his talents.
The student had originally created the characters and story behind Wallace and Gromit while still in school, and decided to animate a short story for his graduation project featuring his man and his cat, later becoming a man and his dog.
Over time the characters morphed into the Wallace and Gromit avid film lovers know today, and Park simply needed an actor to bring it to life.
Speaking to BBC in 2017, Park recalled: “It was a bit of a long shot but I needed a voice for my new project which was called A Grand Day Out!
“I knew Peter’s work from Last of the Summer Wine and it was this sort of mild mannered, understated British humour that attracted me to him.
“I wrote to his agent and I was really surprised when he said yes and it was his generosity really for helping out a student because I hadn’t much money to pay him. I think back then we had about £50.
“It was lovely just to know him really and I feel really grateful not only for the richness and the charm that he brought to Wallace but also just knowing such a lovely man off-screen as well was wonderful.”
Park later added that Sallis was truly his “first and only choice” for the role.
Sallis voiced the character and added some insight into its shape and direction, but once all the scenes had been recorded he thought he would never hear from Park again.
Six years later Sallis received a call saying the film had been finished, which was when he vaguely remembers helping a film student out earlier in the decade.
In December 1989, the half hour short A Grand Day Out was broadcast on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve.
The film was a resounding success, earning multiple award nominations and sparked four consecutive films, which paid Sallis a fair bit more than the original £50.
The star tragically passed away in 2017 at the age of 96 in the Denville Hall retirement home for actors in West London.
Following news of his death fans flocked to social media to share images and memes of his on-screen co-star Gromit in tears.
The London-born actor first discovered his love for performance in the RAF at the beginning of World War 2.
Assigned to be a wireless mechanic in Lincolnshire, Sallis got a starring role in an amateur theatre production and soon found himself winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Sallis stuck to the stage, with years at regional repertory companies before launching into the West End with Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters which truly launched his career into the stratosphere.
Sallis’ next big break would be Last of the Summer Wine which is Britain’s longest running comedy programme.
Filming of the series saw the actors spending six months at a time on location in Holmfirth where Sallis was thrust into the role of peacekeeper off-camera.
His co-star Bill Owen was notoriously hot tempered and would often end up in verbal tirades with other cast and crew members which Sallis usually attempted to cool down.
Despite this the two became the best of friends during filming and are buried next to each other at St John’s Church graveyard in Holmfirth.
‘Last of the Summer Wine: The Story of…’ airs on Channel 5 tonight at 7:30pm.
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