Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish character actor whose career ran from the 1930s right up to his death, taking in repertory theatre, film and television. He became a household name playing the cantankerous rag-and-bone man Albert Steptoe opposite Harry H. Corbett in the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son (1962–1974), a role so vivid that audiences struggled to picture him any other way. That same year the show made him famous, he took a very different part as Paul McCartney's tidy, respectable grandfather in the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night (1964). He continued working in theatre and film into the early 1980s, including a well-received silent performance in Terence Davies's short film Death and Transfiguration shortly before his death.