Anecdotes

Started a petition to force Sir John Gielgud to resign from Equity when the actor was convicted for "persistently importuning for immoral purposes" in 1953. Sir Laurence Olivier threw Chapman out of his dressing room when he tried to get his signature for the petition.

Took a break from acting and joined the Royal Air Force during World War Two. He was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and served as the Intelligence Officer for a Spitfire Squadron during 1941 and 1942.

Formerly worked as a bank clerk. Indeed, his perpetually serious, usually bespectacled countenance and often pompous or reproving manner, made for ideal casting as stuffy bank managers, politicians and apoplectic businessmen -- both in straight drama or as comic foil to the likes of Norman Wisdom. Started out on screen after being cast by Alfred Hitchcock in three of his early films, beginning with Junon et le paon (1930). Noted for his turn as Major Grigsby in L'Homme qui pouvait accomplir des Miracles (1936).

Despite making some 70 films he's best remembered as "Mr.Grimsdale", the comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in five of his films from the 1950s and 1960s.

Began his stage career in 1924.