James Hayter

James Hayter was personally chosen for the part of Friar Tuck by the director of Disney’s Story of Robin Hood, Ken Annakin. Hayter had just played the role of a verger in Annakin’s last production, Trio (1950) based on three stories by Somerset Maugham. During the early days of filming in March 1951, Annakin began screen testing Hayter for the part of the merry priest, exploring the character’s various possibilities. But as they fooled around and generally went ‘over the top’, Annakin was stunned to turn around and see Walt Disney and the producer of the film, Perce Pearce standing behind him.

Disney was not impressed and took Annakin to one side.
“You seem to have a very-laid back relationship with your actor, Annakin", he said.
The embarrassed director tried to explain that they had just finished a film together and were exploring how much joviality they could get away with, in the role of Friar Tuck.
“He can be played in several ways ,” Disney interrupted, “I’ve always seen him quite clearly in one way. I’d like to see the stuff you have shot.”

As they turned to walk away, he said, “I hope your not going to be cynical about these fine old English characters Annakin, they’re classics, you know and I don’t want them spoofed. I see the character something like this.......”

Then Walt Disney sat on a ‘prop rock’ by the river and began to sing Friar Tuck’s song from the film, Come Sing Hi , including a conversation with an imaginary Robin Hood. He knew all the lines by heart and earned himself a round of applause from the film crew. James Hayter went on, of course, to become for many the archetype, Friar Tuck.

‘Jimmy’ Hayter was born in Lonuvla, India on 23rd April 1907, the son of a police superintendant. He began his education in Scotland and it was his school headmaster who spotted his obvious talent and encouraged him into becoming an actor. Hayter later graduated to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA).

He made his stage debut in My Fair Lady as Alfred Dolittle in 1925, a part he played for five years in the West End and later on tour. Jimmy also went on to tread the boards in London in notable productions such as 1066 And All That and French Without Tears. After managing theatre companies in Perth and Dundee and appearing in various repertory theatre productions, his first film appearance came as the character Jock, in the mediocre Brian Desmond version of the play Sensation, in 1936. Hayter then went on to make five more movies before the outbreak of war.

After serving in the Royal Armoured Corps during the dark days of World War II, Jimmy made television history, when he was chosen to play the part of Mr Pinwright, the owner of a small multiple-store, in the BBC’s first recognised half-hour situation comedy series, Pinwright’s Progress in 1947.

His cherubic comedy style soon established him with a whole host of regular film parts and James Hayter became one of the busiest character actors in British film history. Notable early roles include, Nicholas Nickleby (1947) in which he played the twins Ned and Charles Cheeryble, The Blue Lagoon (1949) as Dr Murdoch, Morning Departure (1950) Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1951) as Old Thomas, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, (1952) and The Crimson Pirate (1952) as Professor Prudence.

Apart from his memorable portrayal of Friar Tuck in 1952 (a part he would re-create in the 1967 Challenge For Robin Hood) James Hayter is probably best remembered, in that very same year, for his ‘perfect’ role as Samuel Pickwick in the adaption of the classic Charles Dickens novel, The Pickwick Papers. The success of the movie prompted a BAFTA nomination for him as Best British Actor in 1953. Alexander Gauge, who played Friar Tuck in 89 episodes of the hugely successful TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, also appeared in the film, as Tupman.

Hayter later joined Alexander Gauge and the rest of the television crew of The Adventures of Robin Hood, when he played the part of Tom the Miller in 2 episodes of that classic series.

Jimmy remained just as busy in the television studio as on the film set and appeared in a whole host of early productions. Including, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Presents, Fair Game, The Moonstone, The Avengers, Man From Interpol, The Flaxton Boys, Wicked Women and Dr Finlay's Casebook.

With seven children to support, James Hayter continued to work phenomenally hard in the film industry and went on to appear in over 90 movies, some classics such as: Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951), The Big Money (1958), I Was Monty’s Double (1958), The 39 Steps (1959) and Oliver (1968).

It was in 1970 that Jimmy re-joined Geoffrey Lumsden and Joan Rice; colleagues from Disney’s Story of Robin Hood, in The Horror of Frankenstein. This was the fifth in the series of Frankenstein films made by Hammer, but it is best described as a dreary and disappointing movie. Hayter’s television career was, on the other hand, far from dull, with continuing work in many popular productions of the time, including Doctor at Large, Hunter’s Walk and The Onedin Line.

Towards the end of his long and illustrious acting career, Hayter was chosen by comedy writer and producer, David Croft, to appear as a new assistant in his successful TV series Are You Being Served. Croft said:

"James Hayter had not worked for me before, but he was a well known featured player in movies over here,” Croft remembers, “ and as far as I was concerned was the only candidate providing he was available and willing to play the part."

So as the mischievous Percival Tibbs, Hayter appeared in 6 episodes of Are You Being Served. Unfortunately for many years, Mr Kipling Cakes had used his distinctly fruity voice, for their advertisements on British television and the company did not like the character he now portrayed in this series.

They thought the personality of the character he portrayed was unpleasant and had an air of indignity that might put the viewing public off buying their “exceedingly good cakes”!

Hayter at first argued that he was free-lance and could chose to play any character he desired, but when Mr Kipling Cakes finally offered him three times his BBC salary for the next series, not to do it and terminate his contract, he accepted.

The cast of Are You Being Served were very disappointed to see such a successful comedy talent leave, but he confessed, “if they are prepared to pay me three times as much not to it, then I wont do it– at my time of life, I have no more ambition.”

James Hayter died in Spain aged 75 on 27th March 1985.

© Clement of the Glen 2006-2007

(To see all posts about James Hayter please click on the label 'James Hayter' marked in the right-hand panel or below).

4. James Hayter and Richard Todd

Friar Tuck

In this our spacious isle I think there is not one
But he hath heard some talk of Hood and Little John;
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade.
(Michael Drayton -Poly-Olbion)

Friar Tuck is not mentioned in the existing medieval ballads of Robin Hood, although the Bishop Percy Folio does contains the later Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar (c.1640). But in this he is simply known as the cutted or curtailed friar.

I beshrew thy head, said the cutted ffriar,
Thou thinks I shall be shente;*
I thought thou had but a man or two,
And thou hast a whole convent. * hurt

Friar Tuck first appears in an early play of twenty-one lines written on the back of some household accounts, dated May 1475- August 1475, known as ‘Robin Hood and the Sheriff’. This verse-play seems to be based on the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne and was found amongst the papers of the famous Paston family of Norfolk.

Beholde wele frere Tuke
Howe he dothe his bowe pluke.
Yeld yow, syrs to the sheriff,
Or ells shall your bows clyffe,
Nowe we be bownden alle in same,
Frere Tucke this in no game.

It does seem that Friar Tuck, like Maid Marian was a later addition to the legend via the popular summer plays and parish festivals where the Queen of May and the jovial fat friar played an important part. In 1536 Sir Richard Morison made this complaint to Henry VIII:

In Summer commonly upon the holy days in most places of your realm there be plays of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck: wherein, beside the lewdness and ribaldry that there is opened to the people, disobedience also to your officers is taught whilst these good bloods go about to take from the sheriff of Nottingham one that for offending the laws should have suffered execution.

William Warner in Albion’s England (1586) describes the seasonal festivities:

At Paske began our morris, and ere Pentecost our May,
Tho Robin Hood, Li’ell John, Friar Tuck and Marian deftly play.


Henry Machyn watched an elaborate procession in London in 1559:

....A May-game .....and sant John Sacerys, with a gyant, and drums and gunes the Nine Worthes and then Sant Gorge and the dragon, the mores dansse, and after Robyn Hode and Lytull John and maid Marian and frère Tucke, and they had spechys rond a-bowt London.

Appended to William Copeland’s printed edition of the Mery Geste of Robyn Hoode between 1548-1569, were two summer plays, ‘to be played in Maye games very plesaunte and full of pastyme’, Robin Hood and the Potter and Robin Hood and the Friar. Unlike the earliest surviving ballad, the friar is, like in the Paston play, known as Tuck, but the usual elements of the story are here. Robin’s traditional fight in the water with the friar, the blowing of his horn, the friar’s dogs and the invitation to join the outlaws. But the link with the May Festival and Summer Games is revealed in the last few lines of the play.

Fryer: Here is an huckle duckle,
An inch above the buckle.
She is a trul* of trust,
To serve a frier at his lust,
Aprycker, a prauncer, a terer of sheses,**
A wager of ballockes, when other men slepes,
Go home, ye knaves, and lay crabbes in the fyre,
For my lady and I wil daunce in the myre for very pure joye.

Trollop*
Sheets **

The lady Friar Tuck refers to, in the final line of the play, is almost definitely Maid Marian, his constant partner in the Morris Dances and Whitsun festivals. The churchwardens accounts at Kingston-Upon-Thames from 1507-36 show some of the charges for costumes for what are described as mores daunsaies. In 1509 there was a bill for 12s 10d for a piece of Kendal cloth to make coats for Robin Hood and Little John and three yards of white cloth for Friar Tucks habit, 3s. 4d for four yards of Kendal cloth for Maid Marian’s hooded cloak, 4d for gloves for Robin and Marian and 6d for six broad arrows. One of the earliest known illustrations of these entertainers, can be seen at Betley Old Hall in Staffordshire where depicted in a small painted glass window, designed for George Tollet Esq. are dancers around a May Pole and in the bottom right hand corner we see the Queen of the May or Maid Marian and the Friar.

Royal writs of 1417 describe a chaplain of Lindfield in Sussex called Robert Stafford, who assumed the name ‘frere Tuck’, when he led an outlaw band committing murders and robberies in Surrey and Sussex. Friar Tuck’s crimes also included menacing the local forest wardens and warreners with violence, burning their lodges and hunting without licence. Stow’s Annals reveal :

In 1416 a commission was issued to, Thomas Canoys, Thomas Popynges and John Pelham to arrest a man using the alias Frere Tucke and other malefactors of his retinue who have committed divers murders, homicides, robberies and depredations etc. In the counties of Surrey and Sussex and bring them before Council.

Later we get another commission given to William Lasyngley and Robert Hull:

To enquire into the report that a certain person assuming the unusual name of Frere Tuck and other evil doers, have entered parks, warrens and chases of divers lieges of the king in the counties of Surrey and Sussex and divers times; hunted therein and carried off deer, hares and rabbits, pheasants and partridges.

Stafford continued these exploits for twelve years and was later pardoned in November 1429. These legal documents seem to show that the name Friar Tuck had never been heard of before and one of the clerk’s writing in the calendar of patent rolls describes the name ‘Friar Tuck’ as ‘newly so called in common parlance’. So was this renegade chaplain, Robert Stafford, the original Friar Tuck?

The interchangeable comic priest, who supplied ecclesiastical parody at the summer festivals, was originally known variously as the Abbot of Unreason, Abbot of Marham, and Abbot of Bonacord. But the local churchwardens accounts show that over time those traditional characters gave way to the more popular, jovial fat Friar Tuck. Some believe his name could have originated from the Old English ‘Tucian’- to torment or disturb. In more modern times, due partly to Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819), where he portrayed Friar Tuck as the jolly Clerk and Hermit of Copmanhurst, the name Tuck has been linked to a greediness for food and the Australian tucker. Which in turn has give rise to the many Friar Tuck food outlets around the globe including countless cafe’s and restaurants.

The hermit only replied by a grin; and returning to the hutch, he produced a leathern bottle, which might contain about four quarts. He also brought forth two large drinking cups, made out of the horn of the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but filling both cups, and saying, in the Saxon fashion, ``Waes hael, Sir Sluggish Knight!'' he emptied his own at a draught.

(Ivanhoe 1819)

Scott’s interpretation of the gluttonous hermit can be found in most modern versions of the Robin Hood legend, including the Disney movie The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952). Our first introduction to the jolly friar in this film, has him sat by a river, near his hermitage taking gargantuan swigs of Malmsey wine out of his leather bottle and swallowing large slices of Capon Pie. In this film, James Hayter stole the show with his unforgettable portrayal of Friar Tuck, a role he recreated in 1967 for Hammer’s Challenge for Robin Hood. Hayter later went on to become the television advertisers recognisable voice of Mr Kipling Cakes.

The antiquarian Francis Douce (1757-1834) suggested that the name Friar Tuck could have been a generic name for any friar, because the friar’s habit was often tucked or folded by means of a chord to make it easy to walk in. Geoffrey Chaucer describes the Reeve in his Canterbury Tales as tucked he was, as in a frère aboute.

And generally this is the accepted explanation for the origin of the name of the curtailed or tucked friar.


© Clement of the Glen 2006-2007

2. James Hayter and Richard Todd