Frederick John Inman (28 June 1935 – 8 March 2007) was an English actor and singer best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, a British sitcom between 1972 and 1985, and the spin-off series Grace and Favour. He was the only actor from those series to reprise the role when an Australian version was launched.
In 1976, Inman was named both BBC TV Personality of the Year and TV Times readers' Funniest Man on Television. He was also a well-known character actor in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame.
Early life
Frederick John Inman was born on 28 June 1935 in Preston, Lancashire, and was often said to be a cousin of actress Josephine Tewson, though she denied they were related. (They did, however, play half-siblings in the 1977 sitcom Odd Man Out.) At the age of 12, Inman moved with his parents to Blackpool where his mother ran a boarding house, while his father owned a hairdressing business. As a child, he enjoyed dressmaking. He was educated at Cambridge House in Preston, and then a secondary modern school. Inman always wanted to be an actor, and his parents paid for him to have elocution lessons at the local church hall.
At the age of 13, he made his stage debut in the Pavilion on Blackpool's South Pier, in a melodrama entitled Freda.
