Popular stage and film comedian Claude Noel Hulbert was born in Fulham, London in 1901, younger brother of the highly well-known comedian, singer and comic dancer Jack Hulbert. Like his brother, he was educated at Cambridge and was a member of the Footlights comedy club as an undergraduate. He began his professional acting career in supporting roles in many of the Aldwych farces with Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn. He appeared in films from 1928 before making his first starring role in Their Night Out (1933) with Binnie Barnes. Perhaps one of his most memorable roles at that time was the silly ass brother to Ralph Lynn in A Cup of Kindness (1934), the starring role in Hello, Sweetheart (1935), and starring as a dithering diplomat in Wolf's Clothing (1936). He played opposite Will Hay in two popular comedies The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941) and My Learned Friend (1943), which were the most successful of his later vehicles. He died in a hospital in Sydney, Australia while ashore from a world cruise with his family.

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Claude Hulbert

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