Career
He was the father of Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee and fellow playwright and screenwriter Michael Pertwee. In 1918, following the end of World War I, Pertwee retired from the British Army and began to pursue a career in the burgeoning British film industry. From the 1910s to 1950s, he worked as a writer on many British films, providing either the basic story or full screenplay.
While he seemingly preferred writing, he acted in ten films (1915-1945) and directed Breach of Promise (1942), which he also wrote.
His play Heatwave, written in collaboration with Denise Robins, was produced at the Street James"s Theatre, London, in 1929. Having previously written an episode of Douglas Fairbanks, Junior., Presents, this marked Pertwee"s second and final foray into television writing.
Like many British Broadcasting Corporation television productions of the era, it was broadcast live. At its height, the series had drawn in almost a quarter of British people who owned a television
Reportedly, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother was a great fan.
A film version, entitled lieutenant"s a Great Day, was produced in 1955, likewise written by the Pertwees. He also wrote a number of works of juvenile fiction, most prominently the The Islanders series, which serves up typical Boy"s Own adventure with a strong field sports theme. The Islanders (1950) and Rough Water (1951) tell the adventures of three boys with the run of a sporting estate in the wild Devon countryside during a summer holiday.
The third book, Operation Wild Goose (1955), takes place some years later, on a trip to Iceland, where the boys come up against Russian spies, in between landing fat salmon.
Pertwee wrote two short stories, "The River God" and "Fish Are Such Liars" which are now considered classics and have been anthologized in the book, Fisherman"s Bounty, edited by Nick Lyons, and originally published by Crown in 1970, then by Fireside in 1988. Following the cancellation of The Grove Family in 1957, Pertwee retired from writing.
He died in April 1963, three weeks shy of his 78th birthday.