Who is Irene Handl?

Who is Irene Handl

Irene Handl (27 December 1901 – 29 November 1987) was an English character actress who appeared in over a hundred British films.

Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father, Frederick, and German mother, Maria.

She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike. She made her London stage debut in February 1937 and appeared in over a hundred British films in supporting roles, mostly comedy character parts such as slightly eccentric mothers, grannies, landladies and servants. Among many stage appearances, she played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1975, directed by Jonathan Miller.

Handl had minor roles in such landmark films as Night Train to Munich, Spellbound and Brief Encounter. Her notable appearances included I'm All Right Jack as the wife of Peter Sellers' union leader Fred Kite, Tony Hancock's landlady in The Rebel and Sherlock Holmes' housekeeper Mrs. Hudson in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. She had small roles in two of the Carry on series (Nurse and Constable).

In addition to her acting career, she wrote two novels: The Sioux (1965), described by Margaret Drabble as "Strange and unforgettable...Highly original and oddly haunting" and The Gold Tip Pfitzer (1966),

On television she appeared as a guest in a number of comedy series, notably as a regular in the 1958 series Educating Archie and as Cockney widow Ada Cresswell in For the Love of Ada, which would later be adapted for the cinema. She would also appear in Maggie and Her (1978) opposite Julia McKenzie. In the early 1980s, she played Gran in the ITV children's comedy show Metal Mickey. She appeared in a rare aristocratic role in Mapp and Lucia and as another aristocratic character in Eric Sykes' 1982 television film It's Your Move where her chauffeur was played by Brian Murphy. She also appeared as Madame de Bonneuil in the BBC's film of Hotel du Lac in 1986.

One of her last appearances was in the BBC sitcom In Sickness and in Health in 1987, just before her death at the age of 85.

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Who is Margaret Nolan?

Who is Margaret Nolan

Margaret Nolan (born 29 October 1943) is an English visual artist, actress and former glamour model. She was born in Hampstead, London to Irish parents. Nolan was married to English playwright Tom Kempinski in 1963 and divorced in 1972. She has two sons.

Margaret Nolan began her career in front of a camera lens as a model. As her glamour modelling career took off, she was briefly known as Vicky Kennedy in the early 1960s. Nolan reverted to her birth name as soon as acting roles beckoned; appearing in numerous television shows, theatre productions and movies. The latter included A Hard Day's Night with the Beatles, Ferry Cross the Mersey with Gerry and the Pacemakers and Marcel Carné's Three Rooms in Manhattan.

In 1964, Nolan played the small role of Dink, Bond's masseuse, in the James Bond film Goldfinger. She was painted gold and wore a gold bikini for Robert Brownjohn's title-sequence, advertisements and soundtrack-cover. This led to photographs in Playboy magazine's James Bond's Girls edition of November 1965.

On appearing in Michael Pertwee's 1969 farce She's Done It Again at London's Garrick Theatre, Nolan was known for five BBC series with Spike Milligan and in 2013 published a short essay on her time working with him. Nolan gave a live reading of the work at the Poetry Society in Covent Garden, reviewed by What's On London as a "deeply-personal memoir... her performance simply magical."

Nolan was given bigger roles in several 1970s Carry On films – and most sizably Carry On Girls. The scene in Carry On Girls where a woman in a one-piece swim suit sneezes and bursts open two buttons on her outfit (revealing most of her breasts) is Nolan. The same film contains the sequence of Nolan (in a silver bikini) and Barbara Windsor cat-fighting on a hotel floor.

As a visual artist, Margaret Nolan is recognised for her expressively graphic and sometimes grotesque photo-montages assembled from cut-outs of her early publicity photographs.

She has exhibited in London at many venues, whilst a screen-print is held by Kemistry Gallery.

Nolan lives and works in her home town of Hampstead, continues to exhibit, and occasionally attends conventions for film fans.

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Who is Bob Monkhouse?

Who is Bob Monkhouse?

Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on television as a presenter and game show host.

One of British TV's most popular performers with a career that spanned over four decades, funny-man Bob Monkhouse started off as a radio broadcaster (1947) and stand-up comic. He earned success early on as a gag writer, partnering with Denis Goodwin.

In 1953, the duo won their own TV show called Fast and Loose (1954), which was sketch-comedy based. A nightclub comedian to boot, he also pursued films on occasion appearing in such slapstick dillies as Carry on Sergeant (1958), Dentist in the Chair (1960), Dentist on the Job (1961) and A Weekend with Lulu (1961). But TV would be his prime venue, and he moved quite easily into various parlor game and variety show hosting duties.

For Love or Money (1959) was his first, a Brit version of prank show "Candid Camera". Along the way, he found emceeing chores with The London Palladium Show (1966), The Golden Shot (1967) (which made him a household name), Celebrity Squares (1975) (based on The Hollywood Squares (1965)), Family Fortunes (1980), "The $64,000 Question", Opportunity Knocks (1956), The National Lottery (1994), and many others.

Bob Monkhouse was one of Britain's most prolific and best-known entertainers with a career that lasted over 50 years, and included work as a cartoonist, comedian, actor, writer and TV presenter. Master of the slick one-liner, with a collection of jokes second to none, he was also much sought-after as an after-dinner speaker. Although criticized by some for what they saw as his smooth and insincere on-screen persona, complete with permanent suntan and fake smile, no-one could ever question the professionalism and sheer hard work that went into all he did.

Bob married his first wife Elizabeth, a Belfast nurse, in 1949. His parents were strongly opposed to the marriage: his mother wore mourning black to the wedding and they didn't speak for 20 years. The marriage quickly went sour, due largely to his constant sex affairs, including one with the sexy actress Diana Dors. However, the couple stayed together until 1966, mostly for the sake of their son Gary, who was born severely disabled with cerebral palsy. They had a second son, Simon, and later adopted a daughter, Abigail.

He fell in love with his secretary, Jackie, and they were married in 1972 after he and Elizabeth eventually divorced. With Jackie's encouragement he was reconciled with his mother shortly before her death, although she had prevented him from seeing his father when he was dying. Unfortunately the family estrangements did not end there. He had a difficult relationship with his brother John in adult life, fuelled to some extent by their mother. His younger son Simon, a teacher who had long suffered from depression, died from a heroin overdose in a Thai guesthouse in 2001. They had not spoken for 13 years. His older son Gary had died in 1992.

Monkhouse died in 2003 of prostate cancer.

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Who is Spike Milligan?

Who is Spike Milligan?

Spike was born an 'Army Brat', the son of an Irish Captain in the British Raj in India. Educated in a series of Roman Catholic schools in India and at Lewisham Polytechnic in England, he spent his formative years playing the fool and playing the trumpet in local jazz bands.

He joined the British Army himself (under protest if you believe his auto-biogs) as a conscript at the outbreak of WWII. He served in the Royal Artillery as Gunner Milligan through the North African and Italian campaigns. He got a bit too close to an exploding shell and was hospitalised with shell-shock. On his escape from army life he started his "real" work as an author and humourist.

Most famous for 'The Goon Show' with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe (and originally Michael Bentine), these radio shows are commonly regarded as re-writing the rules of comedy (even before Monty Python). However under the pressure of writing all the scripts he suffered a breakdown and became a clinical manic-depressive.

He was fondly regarded as the last of the great British eccentrics and had written a wealth of comic poetry mainly for children, a few novels and his multi-volume auto-biography. Spike was also a keen environmental campaigner.

After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. During its first season the BBC titled the show as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials, by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.

The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service. Although he did not perform as much in the early shows, Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child, Seán) and through most of Series 6, he collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of his contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts. Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6 but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' death from a brain haemorrhage in January 1959; Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.

The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums. For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc, which required the cast to adhere closely to the script but by Series 4, the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered—the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects.

In early 1969, Milligan starred in the ill-fated situation comedy Curry & Chips, created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. Curry & Chips set out to satirise racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful Till Death Us Do Part, with Milligan 'blacking up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani–half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints, because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language' and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes. Milligan was also involved in the ill-fated programme The Melting Pot.

Later that year, he was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in Q5, the first in the innovative "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered several months later. There was a hiatus of several years, before the BBC commissioned Q6 in 1975. Q7 appeared in 1977, Q8 in 1978, Q9 in 1980 and There's a Lot of It About in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs, had he been given the opportunity. A number of episodes of the earlier "Q" series are missing, presumed wiped.

In 1979 he was a special guest star on The Muppet Show.

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Who is Hattie Jacques?

Who is Hattie Jacques?

Hattie Jacques (born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. She is best known as a regular of the Carry On films, where she typically played strict, no-nonsense characters, but was also a prolific television and radio performer.

Jacques started her career in 1944 with an appearance at the Players' Theatre in London, but came to national prominence through her appearances on three highly popular radio series on the BBC: with Tommy Handley on It's That Man Again; with ventriloquist Peter Brough on Educating Archie; and then with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. After the Second World War Jacques made her cinematic debut in Green for Danger, in which she had a brief, uncredited role. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in 14 Carry On films, playing various roles including the formidable hospital matron. On television she had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in his long-running series Sykes and Sykes and a.... The role endeared her to the public and the two became staples of British television.

In private, Jacques led a turbulent life. She was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965,[1] a separation caused by her five-year affair with another man. Jacques, who had been overweight since her teenage years, suffered ill-health soon after the separation from Le Mesurier and her weight rose to nearly 20 stone (130 kg). She died of a heart attack on 6 October 1980, at the age of 58. Her biographer, Francis Gray, considers Jacques had a "talent for larger-than-life comedy which never lost its grip on humanity", while she could also display "a broader comic mode" as a result of her "extraordinary versatility".

When the first Carry On film was made in 1958, Jacques formed part of the cast. This series would go on to employ the same group of actors who would collectively become known as the "Carry On team". Jacques appeared in 14 of these films over a 15-year period and like many of her Carry On co-stars, she quickly became typecast. A reoccurring role for Jacques was a no-nonsense matron which she played in five of the films – Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Again Doctor, Carry On Camping and Carry On Matron. She became known by the team as a "Mother Hen" figure, and was a close friend to many of her co-stars, including Kenneth Williams and Joan Sims, whom Jacques provided with a great deal of advice and practical help. In return, Sims regarded Jacques as her "greatest friend", and as "both a sister and a mother to me". Jacques would frequently invite Sims, Williams and Hawtrey to her house for Christmas dinner.

Jacques began her association with the Carry On series in March 1958 with the first film in the series, Carry On Sergeant.

On 29 January 1960 Jacques appeared in the first episode of the BBC comedy series Sykes and a..., co-starring with Eric Sykes as a pair of twins; Richard Wattis and Deryck Guyler were also regulars in the cast. Jacques's character—Hattie (Hat) Sykes—was "a middle-class, slightly pretentious lady struggling to keep her dignity as the men made fools of themselves". Sykes and a... went on to run for sixty episodes over nine series during the next five years. they released a comedy album entitled Eric and Hattie and Things!!!, but it failed to chart. In September 1960 she starred in her second television series, Our House, alongside Charles Hawtrey, Bernard Bresslaw and Joan Sims; Jacques played the librarian Georgina Ruddy, who was forced to keep quiet at work and so made up for it by being extremely noisy at home. Later that year she played minor roles in two films: Watch Your Stern, with many of the Carry On regulars, and School for Scoundrels, opposite Ian Carmichael. After these her screen time increased with the part of Nanette Parry in Make Mine Mink in which she co-starred with Terry-Thomas and Athene Seyler. She later described this as her favourite film.

By this time Carry On had become a leading film franchise, with the author Robert Ross describing it as a "phenomenon". That year's film, Carry On Regardless, was the fifth in the series; Jacques received a fee of £100 for the small role of a disgruntled hospital nurse, who appeared briefly on screen alongside the English character actor Kynaston Reeves who played her cantankerous boss. Jacques was initially intended for a major part in the film, but she was unable to commit to a longer role because of ill health. She appeared in her sixth Carry On, Carry On Cabby, in 1963, as "Peggy Hawkins", the emotionally neglected wife of taxi-firm boss "Charlie", played by Sid James. Jacques later named the film as her favourite of the series, as she was allowed to drop her "battleaxe" persona and play the romantic lead opposite James.

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Who is Kenny Everett?

Who is Kenny Everett?

Maurice James Christopher Cole (25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995), known professionally as Kenny Everett, was a British comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for The Kenny Everett Video Show.

While working at a pirate radio station Radio London he was advised to change his name to avoid legal problems. He adopted the name "Everett" from American film comic actor Edward Everett Horton, a childhood hero.

Everett married the singer and psychic Audrey Lee "Lady Lee" Middleton (b. 14 February 1937, the daughter of a fireman) at Kensington Register Office on 2 June 1969. By September 1979, they had separated, and in the mid-1980s, he publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. One of his first boyfriends, a waiter called Jay Pitt was found for Everett by his wife.

During the 1983 general election campaign, the Young Conservatives invited Everett to their conference in an attempt to attract the youth vote. Egged on by film director Michael Winner, Everett bounded onto the stage, wearing the enormously oversized foam rubber hands familiar from his mock-evangelical character Brother Lee Love. He shouted slogans like "Let's bomb Russia!" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away!" to loud applause (Michael Foot was the leader of the Labour Party at the time). Everett later said he regretted the incident and that he had taken the foam hands to the rally because the Tories "asked me first". In an interview on Ireland's The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne and Sinéad O'Connor in 1989, Everett was challenged by O'Connor about his support for the Tory Party in the light of his homosexuality and the Conservative's Section 28 addition to the Local Government Act. Everett clarified that he was not a "full Tory", but that he had been appalled by the actions of Arthur Scargill, who he saw as "inciting violence" and "rebel rousing" and who he thought looked like "Hitler reborn". He had consequently supported the actions of Margaret Thatcher in opposing Scargill. He said he would stand up for gay rights if he were asked providing "it was a jolly occasion", but he also felt that being in a minority and in the public eye, he could do more for gay rights by showing that he was funny and human rather than by marching in the streets.

In 1978, London's Thames Television offered him a new venture, which became the Kenny Everett Video Show. This was a vehicle for Everett's characters and sketches (his fellow writers were Ray Cameron, Barry Cryer and Dick Vosburgh), interspersed with the latest pop hits, either performed by the artists themselves, or as backing tracks to dance routines by Arlene Phillips' risqué dance troupe Hot Gossip.

Various pop and TV stars made cameo appearances on the show, including Rod Stewart, Billy Connolly, Kate Bush, Cliff Richard, Freddie Mercury, Terry Wogan and Suzi Quatro (see also "Friends" section below) and classical musicians such as Julian Lloyd Webber.

There were also the stories of Captain Kremmen, a science fiction hero voiced by Everett and originally developed for his Capital Radio shows, who travelled the galaxy battling fictional alien menaces, along with his assistant Dr Gitfinger and his voluptuous sidekick Carla. In the first three series these segments were animations created by the Cosgrove-Hall partnership (responsible for the successful children's cartoon series Dangermouse, among many others). In the fourth series Kremmen was featured as live action, with Anna Dawson playing Carla; the segments were comedy shorts, rather than the earlier stories.

Other characters included: ageing rock-and-roller Sid Snot, unsuccessfully flipping cigarettes into his mouth – at one point Everett managed to catch one in his mouth, to the amusement of the studio crew; Marcel Wave, a lecherous Frenchman played by Everett wearing an absurdly false latex chin; and "Angry of Mayfair", an upper middle class City gent complaining of the risqué content of the show, banging the camera's lens hood with his umbrella, and then storming off, turning his back to us, only then to be revealed as wearing women's underwear in lieu of the entire back half of his suit.

He also created the never-seen character of 'Lord Thames', supposedly the owner of Thames Television (the company was actually owned by two conglomerates). The character was often the butt of Everett's rants and was said to symbolise his contempt for senior management at the company, claiming they lived behind an ancient, cobweb-covered door marked as the "Office of Saying 'No'". Thames never disciplined him for these comments, unlike prior employers such as the BBC.

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Who is Tony Hancock?

Who is Tony Hancock?

Anthony John "Tony" Hancock (12 May 1924 – 24 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor.

Popular during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock's Half Hour, first on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James around 1960 disappointed many of his fans at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best remembered work ("The Blood Donor"). After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career took a downward course because of his alcoholism.

Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer.

In 1942, during World War II, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment.

Over 1951–52, for one series, Hancock was a cast member of Educating Archie, in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy. The same year, he made regular appearances on BBC Television's popular light entertainment show Kaleidoscope. In 1954, he was given his own eponymous BBC radio show, Hancock's Half Hour.

Working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock's Half Hour lasted for seven years and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and from 1956 ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name. The show starred Hancock as Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" in East Cheam. Most episodes portrayed his everyday life as a struggling comedian with aspirations toward straight acting.

Sidney James featured heavily in both the radio and TV versions, while the radio version also included regulars Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and over the years Moira Lister, Andrée Melly and Hattie Jacques.

During the run of his BBC radio and television series, Hancock became an enormous star in Britain. Like few others, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of 'the lad himself' were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released as an LP.

As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sidney James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James's character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them.

Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act and the last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply Hancock, was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: The Blood Donor, in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains famous lines such as, "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!" Another well-known instalment is The Radio Ham, in which Hancock plays an amateur radio enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking his position.

Returning home with his wife from recording "The Bowmans", an episode based around a parody of The Archers, Hancock was involved in a minor car accident and was thrown through the windscreen. He was not badly hurt, but suffered concussion and was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show due to be recorded. The result was that Hancock had to perform by reading from teleprompters, and could be seen looking at camera or away from other actors when delivering lines. From this time onwards, Hancock came to rely on teleprompters instead of learning scripts whenever he had career difficulties.

His break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961.

Hancock committed suicide, by overdose, in Sydney, on 24 June 1968. He was found dead in his Bellevue Hill flat with an empty vodka bottle and a scattering of amylo-barbitone tablets

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Who is Charles Hawtrey?

Who is Charles Hawtrey?

George Frederick Joffre Hartree (30 November 1914 – 27 October 1988), known as Charles Hawtrey, was an English comedy actor and musician.

Beginning at a young age as a boy soprano, he made several records before moving on to the radio. His later career encompassed the theatre (as both actor and director), the cinema (where he regularly appeared supporting Will Hay in the 1930s and '40s in films such as The Ghost of St. Michael's), through the Carry On films, and television.

Born in Hounslow, Middlesex, England in 1914, to William John Hartree and his wife Alice Hartree née Crow as George Frederick Joffre Hartree, he took his stage name from the theatrical knight, Sir Charles Hawtrey, and encouraged the suggestion that he was his son. However, his father was actually a London car mechanic.

Following study at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London, he embarked on a career in the theatre as both actor and director.

By the 1940s, Hawtrey was appearing on radio during Children's Hour in the Norman and Henry Bones, the Boy Detectives series alongside the actress Patricia Hayes (first broadcast in 1943). Later he also played the voice of snooty Hubert Lane, the nemesis of William in the Just William series. His catchphrase was "How's yer mother off for dripping?" Hawtrey's film career continued, but The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941) and The Goose Steps Out (1942) were his last films with Will Hay. After the latter film he asked Hay to give him a bigger role, which Hay refused.

Hawtrey also took a hand at directing films himself, including What Do We Do Now? (1945) a musical-mystery written by the English author George Cooper, and starring George Moon. Around the same time, Hawtrey directed the British actress Dame Flora Robson in Dumb Dora Discovers Tobacco (1946). Both films are believed lost.

In Our House (1960–62), Hawtrey played the character of council official Simon Willow. The series was created by Norman Hudis, the screenwriter for the first six Carry On films. In the opening episode ('Moving into Our House') two couples and five individuals meet at an estate agent's and realise that if they pool their resources they can buy a house big enough to accommodate them all. Hattie Jacques as librarian Georgina Ruddy, who was forced to keep quiet at work and so made up for it by being extremely noisy at home, was arguably the star of the series. Joan Sims starred as the unemployable Daisy Burke.

The series initially ran for 13 episodes from September to December 1960, returning the following year with Bernard Bresslaw and Hylda Baker as Henrietta added to the cast. Of the 39 episodes transmitted, only three survive today

By this time, he had become a regular participant in the Carry On films series. Hawtrey was in the first entry, Carry On Sergeant (1958), and more than 20 of the subsequent films. Hawtrey's characters ranged from the wimpish through the effete to the effeminate.

His last film was Carry On Abroad (1972), after which he was dropped from the series. The last straw occurred in 1972 when, in a bid to finally gain higher billing, Hawtrey withdrew from a Carry On Christmas television programme in which he was scheduled to appear, giving just a few days' notice for his absence and despite appearing in promotional material. After this, producer Peter Rogers stopped using him for Carry On roles. Rogers explained: "He became rather difficult and impossible to deal with because he was drinking a lot. We used to feed him black coffee before he would go on. It really became that we were wasting time." Hawtrey's alcohol consumption had noticeably increased since Carry On Cowboy (1965), which was released in the year his mother died.

On the 24th of October 1988 Hawtrey collapsed in the doorway of the Royal hotel in Deal.He shattered his femur and was rushed in an ambulance to the Buckland hospital in Dover. He was discovered to be suffering from peripheral vascular disease, a condition of the arteries brought on by a lifetime of heavy smoking. Hawtrey was told that to save his life, his legs would have to be amputated. He refused, allegedly saying he preferred to die with his boots on, and died later in the month, aged 73, in a Walmer, Kent nursing home, near Deal. On his deathbed, Hawtrey supposedly threw a vase at his nurse who asked for an autograph[19] – it was the last thing he did. His ashes were scattered in Mortlake Crematorium, close to Chiswick in London; no friends or family attended.

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Who is Rowan Atkinson?

Who is Rowan Atkinson?

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson, CBE (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian, and screenwriter best known for his work on the sitcoms Mr. Bean and Blackadder. Atkinson first came to prominence in the sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–82), and via his participation in The Secret Policeman's Balls from 1979. His other work includes the sitcom The Thin Blue Line (1995–96).

He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy and amongst the top 50 comedians ever, in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday and in Johnny English (2003) and its sequel Johnny English Reborn (2011).

Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1978 called The Atkinson People. It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.

After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his straight man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for London Weekend Television in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News for the BBC, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He featured in the show with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.

The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to him taking the lead role in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder (1983), which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was broadcast, this time written by Curtis and Ben Elton. Blackadder II (1986) followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two more sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series became one of the most successful of all BBC situation comedies, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988), Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988), and later Blackadder: Back & Forth (1999), which was set at the turn of the Millennium.

The final scene of "Blackadder Goes Forth" (when Blackadder and his men go "over the top" and charge into No-Man's-Land) has been described as "bold and highly poignant". During the 2014 centennial of the start of World War I, Michael Gove and war historian Max Hastings have complained about the so-called "Blackadder version of history".

Atkinson's other creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Year's Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened to a modern-day Buster Keaton. During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television until 1995, and the character later appeared in a feature film. Bean (1997) was directed by Mel Smith, Atkinson's colleague in Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second film, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in 2007. In 1995 and 1996, Atkinson portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in The Thin Blue Line television sitcom written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.

Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Atkinson appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent named Richard Lathum in a long-running series of adverts for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English and Johnny English Reborn was based. He also starred in a comedy spoof of Doctor Who as the Doctor, for a "Red Nose Day" benefit. Atkinson appeared as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car on Top Gear in July 2011, driving the Kia Cee'd around the track in 1:42.2, placing him at the top of the leaderboard until Matt LeBlanc later recorded a 1:42.1 lap time.

Atkinson appeared at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony as Mr. Bean in a comedy sketch during a performance of "Chariots of Fire", playing a repeated single note on synthesiser. He then lapsed into a dream sequence in which he joined the runners from the film of the same name (about the 1924 Summer Olympics), beating them in their iconic run along West Sands at St. Andrews, by riding in a minicab and tripping the front runner.

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Who is John Cleese?

Who is John Cleese?

John Marwood Cleese (27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

In the mid-1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films, two Harry Potter films, and the last three Shrek films.

With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films.

The success of the Footlights Revue led to the recording of a short series of half-hour radio programmes, called I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which were so popular that the BBC commissioned a regular series with the same title that ran from 1965 to 1974. Cleese returned to Britain and joined the cast. In many episodes, he is credited as "John Otto Cleese" (according to Jem Roberts, this may have been due to the embarrassment of his actual middle name Marwood).

Also in 1965, Cleese and Chapman began writing on The Frost Report. The writing staff chosen for The Frost Report consisted of a number of writers and performers who would go on to make names for themselves in comedy. They included co-performers from I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and future Goodies Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, and also Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. While working on The Frost Report, the future Pythons developed the writing styles that would make their collaboration significant. Cleese's and Chapman's sketches often involved authority figures, some of whom were performed by Cleese, while Jones and Palin were both infatuated with filmed scenes that opened with idyllic countryside panoramas. Idle was one of those charged with writing David Frost's monologue. During this period Cleese met and befriended influential British comedian Peter Cook.

It was as a performer on The Frost Report that Cleese achieved his breakthrough on British television as a comedy actor, appearing as the tall, patrician figure in the classic class sketch, contrasting comically in a line-up with the shorter, middle class Ronnie Barker and the even shorter, working class Ronnie Corbett. This series was so popular that in 1966 Cleese and Chapman were invited to work as writers and performers with Brooke-Taylor and Feldman on At Last the 1948 Show, during which time the Four Yorkshiremen sketch was written by all four writers/performers (the Four Yorkshiremen sketch is now better known as a Monty Python sketch). Cleese and Chapman also wrote episodes for the first series of Doctor in the House (and later Cleese wrote six episodes of Doctor at Large on his own in 1971). These series were successful, and in 1969 Cleese and Chapman were offered their very own series. He had found working with Palin on The Frost Report an enjoyable experience and invited him to join the series. Palin had previously been working on Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle and Jones, with Terry Gilliam creating the animations. The four of them had, on the back of the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set, been offered a series for Thames Television, which they were waiting to begin when Cleese's offer arrived. Palin agreed to work with Cleese and Chapman in the meantime, bringing with him Gilliam, Jones, and Idle.

Monty Python's Flying Circus ran for four seasons from October 1969 to December 1974 on BBC Television, though Cleese quit the show after the third. Cleese's two primary characterisations were as a sophisticate and a stressed-out loony. He portrayed the former as a series of announcers, TV show hosts, and government officials (for example, "The Ministry of Silly Walks"). The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop" and by Cleese's Mr Praline character, the man with a dead Norwegian Blue parrot and a menagerie of other animals all named "Eric". He was also known for his working class "Sergeant Major" character, who worked as a Police Sergeant, Roman Centurion, etc. He is also seen as the opening announcer with the now famous line "And now for something completely different", although in its premiere in the sketch "Man with Three Buttocks", the phrase was spoken by Eric Idle.

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Who is Joan Sims?

Who is Joan Sims?

Joan Sims AKA Irene Joan Marion Sims (9 May 1930 – 27 June 2001), best known as Joan Sims, was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, for playing Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By and Mrs Wembley, the cook with a liking for sherry, in On the Up.

Sims was born in 1930, the daughter of the station master of Laindon railway station in Laindon, Essex. Sims' early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station.

In 1946, Sims first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. Her first audition included a rendition of Winnie the Pooh. She did succeed in being admitted to PARADA, the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, she graduated and was trained at RADA. She graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19. One of her first stage performances was in the 1951 pantomime, The Happy Ha'penny, opposite Stanley Baxter at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Sims made her first film appearance in Will Any Gentleman? with George Cole in 1953.

In 1954, she made a cameo appearance in Doctor in the House, opposite Dirk Bogarde as the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis. Sims became a regular in the Doctors series, which was produced by Betty E. Box, and was hence spotted by Box's husband Peter Rogers.

She had a small part in the 1957 film Carry on Admiral, unrelated to the later Carry On series and with no other cast members in common with the series.

In 1958, Sims received a script from Peter Rogers; it was for Carry On Nurse. The film Carry On Sergeant had been a huge success at the box office and in the autumn of that year, Rogers and director Gerald Thomas began planning a follow-up.

She first starred in Carry On Nurse, then Carry On Teacher, followed by Carry On Constable and Carry On Regardless, and this sealed her future as a regular Carry On performer. Following a bout of ill health, Dilys Laye had to be brought in to take her place in Carry On Cruising at very short notice; however, Sims rejoined the team with Carry On Cleo. Her role in this was to set the tone for the rest of the Carry On films.

Sims' characters evolved from objects of desire in the early films to frumpy, nagging wives in the later ones, epitomised by the Emily Bung role in Carry On Screaming. Following the success of Carry On Cleo, she stayed with the films all the way though to the final one in the original series, Carry On Emmannuelle. Sims appeared in 24 Carry On films in all; she did not return for the one-off revival film, Carry On Columbus (1992).

After the Carry On series ended in 1978, Sims continued to work on television. She appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in the award-winning 1975 television film Love Among the Ruins and had a recurring role as Gran in the BBC comedy series Till Death Us Do Part. From 1979 until 1981, she played the recurring character Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton in Worzel Gummidge for Southern Television. Also in 1986, Sims appeared in the long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who in the four episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet as Katryca.

In 1987 she joined the cast on And There's More and was paired up with Nicholas Smith for a number of sketches for each episode as an old couple.

In 1989, she appeared as a medium in the video for Morrissey's "Ouija Board, Ouija Board".

In her later years, Sims fought a long battle against depression. This was worsened by the deaths of her agent Peter Eade, her best friend Hattie Jacques and her mother, all within a two-year period, after which she fell into alcoholism. Sims suffered from Bell's palsy in 1999 and fractured her hip in 2000, but recovered well. However, her alcoholism was beginning to dominate life in her rented Kensington flat, and she described herself as "the queen of puddings." After assessment by a doctor, she was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre, but declined. Offered the opportunity to write her autobiography, she took a role in the BBC television film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, alongside Dame Judi Dench and Olympia Dukakis.

Sims, like her fellow Carry On star Kenneth Williams, never married. Williams, who was homosexual, did however propose a marriage of convenience to her, which she promptly declined.

Sims entered hospital in November 2000, and complications of a routine operation caused her to slip into a coma. Her lifelong friend and stand-in Norah Holland spoke of the doctors' amazement at her strength and courage throughout her final illness.

On 27 June 2001, ten minutes before she died, Norah Holland spoke to her gently about Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and their time on the Carry On films. She died with Holland holding her hand. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, and her ashes scattered in the grounds there.

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Who is Kenneth Williams?

Who is Kenneth Williams?

Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English comic actor and comedian of Welsh parentage. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne among others.

Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February 1926 in Bingfield Street, King's Cross, London,[3] the son of Louisa ("Lou" or "Louie") Morgan and Charles Williams, a barber and strict Methodist from Wales. Williams had a half-sister, Alice Patricia "Pat", born illegitimately before Louie had met Charlie Williams. Kenneth was educated at Lyulph Stanley School, later becoming apprenticed as a draughtsman to a mapmaker. He joined the Army in 1944 at 18. As part of the Royal Engineers survey section in Bombay, he first performed on stage in the Combined Services Entertainment alongside Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols. He was a voracious reader able to quote poems or literary extracts from memory. Excerpts from the diaries he kept as an adult show that he adored his supportive and theatrical mother but despised his homophobic, morose and selfish father.

When Hancock steered the show away from what he considered gimmicks and silly voices, Williams found he had less to do. Tiring of this reduced status, he joined Kenneth Horne in Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964), and its sequel, Round the Horne (1965–1968). His roles in Round the Horne included Rambling Syd Rumpo, the eccentric folk singer; Dr Chou En Ginsberg, MA (failed), Oriental criminal mastermind; J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, telephone heavy breather and dirty old man; and Sandy of the camp couple Julian and Sandy (Julian was played by Hugh Paddick). Their double act contained double entendres and Polari, the homosexual argot.

Williams worked regularly in British film during the 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the Carry On series (1958–1978) with its double entendre humour; and appearing in the series more than any other actor. The films were commercially successful but Williams and the cast were apparently poorly paid. In his diaries, Williams wrote that he earned more in a British Gas advert than for any Carry On film. He often privately criticised and "dripped vitriol" upon the films, considering them beneath him. This became the case with many of the films and shows in which he appeared. He was quick to find fault with his own work, and that of others. Despite this, he spoke fondly of the Carry Ons in interviews. Peter Rogers, producer of the series, recollected, "Kenneth was worth taking care of because, while he cost very little – £5,000 a film, he made a great deal of money for the franchise."

Williams was a regular on the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute from its second season in 1968 until his death. From 1972, when he felt he was not being appreciated, he would scream, "I've come all the way from Great Portland Street" (it was a short distance to the studio from his home). He also talked for almost a minute about a supposed Austrian psychiatrist called Heinrich Swartzberg, correctly guessing that the show's creator, Ian Messiter, had just made the name up.

On television he was a frequent contributor to the 1973–1974 revival of What's My Line?, hosted the weekly entertainment show International Cabaret and was a regular reader on the children's storytelling series Jackanory on BBC1, hosting 69 episodes. He appeared on Michael Parkinson's chat show on eight occasions, regaling audiences with anecdotes from his career. Williams was a stand-in host on the Wogan talk show in 1986; and also voiced the cartoon series Willo the Wisp (1981).

On 14 October 1962, Charlie Williams was taken to hospital after drinking carbon tetrachloride that had been stored in a cough-mixture bottle. Kenneth refused to visit him. The next day Charlie died while Kenneth was out to lunch and the cinema; an hour after being given the news, Kenneth went on stage in the West End. The coroner's court recorded a verdict of accidental death due to corrosive poisoning by carbon tetrachloride.

Several years later Williams turned down work with Orson Welles in America because he disliked the country and had no desire to work there. Many years after his death, The Mail on Sunday, quoting Wes Butters, co-writer of the book Kenneth Williams Unseen: The Private Notes, Scripts And Photographs, claimed Williams had been denied a visa because Scotland Yard considered him a suspect in his father's death.

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Who is Graeme Garden?

Who is Graeme Garden?

David Graeme Garden OBE (born 18 February 1943) is a British comedian, author, actor, artist and television presenter, best known as a member of The Goodies.

Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, he grew up in Preston, England. Garden was educated at Repton School, and studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he joined the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which he became President in 1964), and performed with the 1964 Footlights revue, Stuff What Dreams Are Made Of at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.



Garden qualified in medicine at King's College London, but has never practised.[1] Asked how he justified making jokes rather than saving lives, he answered:



I don't think I would have done it as well. It's an interesting question – whether you've contributed more to the vast store of human enjoyment by doing comedy or by being a doctor, but the answer for me is that I don't think I would have been as successful or as happy being a doctor.

Garden was co-writer and performer in the classic BBC radio comedy sketch show, I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, in the late 1960s. Garden was studying medicine during the early seasons of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, and this commitment made it difficult for him to be a member of the cast during the third season because of a midwifery medical course in Plymouth. However, he continued sending scripts for the radio show by mail – and rejoined the cast upon his return to his medical studies in London.[2] On several occasions his medical qualifications are lampooned; in the 25th Anniversary Show, David Hatch asks him if he is still a writer. Garden: "Here's something I wrote this morning". Hatch: "It's a prescription". "Yes," says Garden, "but it's a funny one..."

Garden is a permanent panellist on the long-running BBC Radio improvisation show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue in a cast which includes Tim Brooke-Taylor. He also stars in and co-writes, with Barry Cryer, You'll Have Had Your Tea, a direct spin-off of ISIHAC, and has contributed to several books from the series including guides to the game Mornington Crescent.

Garden's best known television work is freeform sitcom The Goodies, which he wrote and performed along with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie from 1970 to 1982. The three appeared in the Amnesty International show A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick) (during which they sang their hit song "Funky Gibbon"). Garden and Bill Oddie co-wrote many episodes of the television sitcom Doctor in the House, including most of the first series episodes, and all of the second series episodes - as well as co-writing episodes of the subsequent Doctor at Large and Doctor in Charge series. Garden was co-writer and performer in the sketch show Twice a Fortnight with Bill Oddie, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Jonathan Lynn, and also sketch show Broaden Your Mind with Tim Brooke-Taylor, with Bill Oddie joining the cast for the second series.

Garden was the voice of the title character in Bananaman (1983), in addition to General Blight and Maurice of the Heavy Mob in the children's animated television comedy series, which also featured the rest of the Goodies team. The series parodied comic book super-heroes. Later, Garden wrote for the sitcom Surgical Spirit (1994). Graeme Garden has also presented three series of the BBC's health magazine Bodymatters.

Garden appeared in the political sitcom, Yes Minister in the role of Commander Forrest of the Special Branch in the episode The Death List, as well as appearing as a Television Presenter in the Doctor in the House episode, Doctor on the Box.

Garden writes and directs for the corporate video company Video Arts, famous for its training films starring John Cleese.

Garden lives in Oxfordshire with his wife Emma, with whom he has a son, Tom. Garden also has a daughter, Sally, and a son, John, from his previous marriage to Mary Elizabeth Wheatley Grice. His son John "JJ" Garden is the occasional keyboardist for the music group Scissor Sisters, and shares songwriting credit on their 2006 album Ta-Dah. Garden's father, Robert Symon Garden, was an eminent orthopaedic surgeon who created the Garden classification of hip fractures and the Garden screw, used to repair certain hip fractures. R. S. Garden died on 16 October 1982 at the age of 72.

Garden was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to light entertainment.

Garden is a patron of the disability charity ENRYCH – formerly Ryder-Cheshire Volunteers. The charity works to enable adults with a physical disability to enjoy culture, leisure, learning and sporting opportunities through partnership with a volunteer.

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Who Is Sid James?

Who Is Sid James?

Sid James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a South African-born English actor and comedian.

Appearing in British films from 1947, he was cast in numerous small and supporting roles into the 1960s. His profile was raised as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour, which ran on television from 1956 until 1960, and then he became known as a regular performer in the Carry On films, appearing in 19 films of the series with the top billing role in 17, in the other two he was cast below Frankie Howerd. Meanwhile, his starring roles in television sitcoms continued for the rest of his life. He starred alongside Diana Coupland in the 1970s sitcom Bless This House which aired from 1971 until James died in 1976.

In 1954, he had begun working with Tony Hancock in his BBC Radio series Hancock's Half Hour. Having seen him in The Lavender Hill Mob, it was the idea of Hancock's writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, to cast James. He played a character with his own name (but having the invented middle name Balmoral), who was a petty criminal who would usually manage to con Hancock, although the character eventually ceased to be Hancock's adversary. With the exception of James, the other regular cast members of the radio series were dropped when the series made the transition to television. His part in the show now greatly increased, many viewers considered Hancock and James to be a double act.

Feeling the format had become exhausted, Hancock decided to end his professional relationship with James at the end of the sixth television series in 1960. Although the two men remained friends, James was upset at his colleague's decision. Galton and Simpson continued to write for both men for a while, and the Sidney Balmoral James character resurfaced in the Citizen James (1960–62) series. Sid James was now consistently taking the lead role in his television work. Taxi! (1963–64) was his next series.

James became a leading member of the Carry On films team, originally to replace Ted Ray who had appeared in Carry On Teacher (1959). It was intended that Ray would become a recurring presence in the Carry On series, but he had been dropped after just one film because of contractual problems. James ultimately made 19 Carry On films, receiving top-billing in 17, making him one of the most featured performers of the regular cast.

The characters he portrayed in the films were usually very similar to the wise-cracking, sly, lecherous Cockney he was famed for playing on television, and in most cases bore the name Sid or Sidney, including Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond in Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968) and elsewhere in his credits. His trademark "dirty laugh" was often used and became, along with a world-weary "Cor, blimey!", his catchphrase.

There were Carry On films in which James played characters who were not called Sid or Sidney, namely, Carry On Henry (1971, a parody of The Six Wives of Henry VIII TV series) and Carry On Dick, a parody of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin, in both of which he played the title roles, and Carry On Cleo, in which he played Mark Antony. In Carry On Cowboy, he even adopted an American accent for his part as "The Rumpo Kid".

In 1967, James was intending to play Sergeant Nocker in Follow That Camel, but was already committed to recording the TV series George and the Dragon (1966–68) for ATV, then one of the ITV contractors. James was replaced in Follow That Camel by the American comic actor Phil Silvers. On 13 May 1967, two weeks after the filming began of what eventually became an entry in the Carry On series, James suffered a severe heart attack. In the same year in Carry On Doctor. James was shown mainly lying in a hospital bed, owing to his real-life health problems. After his heart attack James gave up his heavy cigarette habit and instead smoked a pipe with an occasional cigar; he lost weight, ate only one main meal a day, and limited himself to two or three alcoholic drinks per evening.

Meanwhile his success in TV situation comedy continued with the series Two in Clover (1969–70), and Bless This House (1971-76) as Sid Abbott, a successful enough series in its day to spawn its own film version in 1972.

On 26 April 1976, while on a revival tour of The Mating Season, a 1969 farce by the Irish playwright Sam Cree, James suffered a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre. Actress Olga Lowe thought that James was playing a practical joke at first when he failed to reply to her dialogue. The technical manager called for the curtain to close and requested a doctor, while the audience laughed, believing the events to be part of the show. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, but died about an hour later. James, aged 62, was cremated and his ashes were scattered at Golders Green Crematorium.

Some, including Comedian Les Dawson claim to have seen the ghost of James at the theatre.

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Who Is Tim Brooke-Taylor?

Who Is Tim Brooke-Taylor?

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE (born 17 July 1940) is an English comic actor. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at Cambridge University, and became President of the Footlights club, touring internationally with the Footlights revue in 1964. Becoming wider known to the public for his work on BBC Radio with I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, he moved into television with At Last the 1948 Show working together with old Cambridge friends John Cleese and Graham Chapman. He is most well known as a member of The Goodies, starring in the TV series throughout the 1970s and picking up international recognition in Australia and New Zealand. He has also appeared as an actor in various sitcoms, and has been a panellist on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue for nearly 40 years.

Brooke-Taylor was born in Buxton, Derbyshire, England

After teaching for a year at a preparatory school in Berkhamsted and a term back at Holm Leigh School as a teacher, he studied at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge. There he read Economics and Politics before changing to read Law, and mixed with other budding comedians, including John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn in the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which Brooke-Taylor became President in 1963).

Brooke-Taylor moved swiftly into BBC Radio with the fast-paced comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again in which he performed and co-wrote. As the screeching eccentric Lady Constance de Coverlet, he could be relied upon to generate the loudest audience response of many programmes in this long-running series merely with her unlikely catchphrase "Did somebody call?" uttered after a comic and transparent feed-line, as their adventure story reached its climax or cliffhanger ending. Other members of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again were John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, David Hatch and Jo Kendall.

In 1967, Brooke-Taylor became a writer/performer on the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman.

Brooke-Taylor also took part in Frost's pilot programme How to Irritate People in 1968, designed to sell what would later be recognised as the Monty Python style of comedy to the American market. The programme was also notable as the first collaboration of John Cleese and Michael Palin.

In 1968–69, Brooke-Taylor was also a cast member and writer on the television comedy series Marty starring Marty Feldman.

The success of Broaden Your Mind led to the commissioning of The Goodies, also with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. First transmitted on BBC2 in November 1970, The Goodies was a huge television success, running for over a decade on both BBC TV and (in its final year) UK commercial channel London Weekend Television, spawning many spin-off books and successful records.

He also appeared on television in British sitcoms, including You Must Be the Husband with Diane Keen, His and Hers with Madeline Smith, and Me and My Girl with Richard O'Sullivan.

After the end of The Goodies on UK television, Brooke-Taylor also worked again with Garden and Oddie on the animated television comedy series Bananaman, in which Brooke-Taylor was the narrator, as well as voicing the characters of King Zorg of the Nurks, Eddie the Gent, Auntie and Appleman. He also lent his voice to the children's TV series Gideon.

He has been married to Christine Wheadon since 1968. They have two children.

Brooke-Taylor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours.

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Who Is Bill Oddie?

Who Is Bill Oddie?

William Edgar "Bill" Oddie OBE (born 7 July 1941) is an English writer, composer, musician, comedian, artist, ornithologist, conservationist and television presenter. He became famous as one of The Goodies.

A birdwatcher since his childhood in Quinton, Birmingham, Oddie has now established a reputation as an ornithologist, conservationist, and television presenter on wildlife issues. Some of his books are illustrated with his own paintings and drawings. His wildlife programmes for the BBC include: Springwatch/Autumnwatch, How to Watch Wildlife, Wild In Your Garden, Birding with Bill Oddie, Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie and Bill Oddie Goes Wild.

After attending Lapal Primary School, Halesowen Grammar School (now The Earls High School, Halesowen) then King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he captained the school's rugby union team. Oddie went on to study English Literature at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he appeared in several Cambridge University Footlights Club productions.

One of these, a revue called A Clump of Plinths, was so successful at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that it was renamed Cambridge Circus and transferred to the West End in London, then New Zealand and Broadway in September 1964. Meanwhile, still at Cambridge, Oddie wrote scripts for and appeared briefly in TV's That Was The Week That Was.

He appeared in Bernard Braden's television series On The Braden Beat in 1964. Subsequently, he was a key member of the performers in the BBC radio series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (ISIRTA; 1965), where many of his musical compositions were featured. Some were released on the album Distinctly Oddie (Polydor, 1967). He was one of the first performers to parody a rock song, arranging the traditional Yorkshire folk song "On Ilkla Moor Baht'at" in the style of Joe Cocker's hit rendition of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" (released on John Peel's Dandelion Records in 1970 and featured in Peel's special box of most-treasured singles), and singing "Andy Pandy" in the style of a brassy soul number such as Wilson Pickett or Geno Washington might perform. In many shows he would do short impressions of Hughie Green.

In one song on I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, Oddie performed "What a Wonderful World" with a voice fully reminiscent of Louis Armstrong. During the course of the song, the rest of the cast attributed the gravelly quality of his voice to a sore throat. In the background, during the rest of the song, it is possible to hear the cast dispense cough medicine, then call for a doctor, the arrival of the doctor and his decision that Oddie should go into hospital, the trip to hospital in an ambulance, and the operation extracting his tonsils. After this, the sound of his voice changed to a sound closer to that of Harry Secombe. He thanked the cast for curing him. On television Oddie was co-writer and performer in the comedy series Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Jonathan Lynn. Later, he was co-writer and performer in the comedy series Broaden Your Mind with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden, for which Oddie became a cast member for the second series.

Oddie, Brooke-Taylor and Garden then co-wrote and appeared in their television comedy series The Goodies. The Goodies also released records, including "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me"/"The In-Betweenies", "Funky Gibbon", and "Black Pudding Bertha", which were hit singles in 1974–75. They reformed, briefly, in 2005, for a successful 13-date tour of Australia.

Oddie, Brooke-Taylor and Garden voiced characters on the 1983 animated children's programme Bananaman.

In the Amnesty International show A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), Oddie, Brooke-Taylor and Garden sang their hit song "Funky Gibbon". They also appeared on Top of the Pops with the song. Together with Garden (who is a qualified doctor), Oddie co-wrote many episodes of the television comedy series Doctor in the House, including most of the first season and all of the second season. He has occasionally appeared on the BBC Radio 4 panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, on which Garden and Brooke-Taylor are regular panellists. In 1982 Garden and Oddie wrote, but did not perform in, a 6-part science fiction sitcom called Astronauts for Central and ITV. The show was set in an international space station in the near future.

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Who Is Harry H. Corbett?

Who Is Harry H. Corbett?

Harry H. Corbett, OBE (28 February 1925 – 21 March 1982) was an English actor.

Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 1970s. Corbett was regarded as one of Britain's first Method actors and early in his career he was dubbed "the English Marlon Brando" by some sections of the British press.

Corbett was born in Rangoon, Burma, where his father, George, was serving as a company quartermaster sergeant in the South Harry H. Corbett, OBE (28 February 1925 – 21 March 1982) was an English actor.

Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 1970s. Corbett was regarded as one of Britain's first Method actors and early in his career he was dubbed "the English Marlon Brando" by some sections of the British press.

Corbett was born in Rangoon, Burma, where his father, George, was serving as a company quartermaster sergeant in the South Staffordshire Regiment of the British Army, stationed at a cantonment as part of the Colonial defence forces. Corbett was sent to Britain after his mother Mary died of dysentery when he was 18 months old. He was then brought up by his aunt, Annie Williams, in Earl Street, Ardwick, Manchester and later on a new council estate in Wythenshawe. He attended Ross Place and Benchill Primary Schools; although he passed the scholarship exam for entry to Chorlton Grammar School, he was not able to take up his place there and instead attended Sharston Secondary School.

After serving with the Royal Marines during the Second World War, Corbett trained as a radiographer before taking up acting as a career, initially in repertory. In the early 1950s, he added the initial "H" to avoid confusion with the television entertainer Harry Corbett, known for his act with the glove-puppet Sooty. He joked that "H" stood for "hennyfink" – a Cockney pronunciation of "anything".

Scriptwriters Galton and Simpson, who had been successful with Hancock's Half Hour, changed Corbett's life. In 1962, at their request Corbett appeared in "The Offer", an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, Comedy Playhouse, written by Galton and Simpson. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag-and-bone man living with his irascible widower father Albert (Wilfrid Brambell), in a junkyard with only their horse for company. Corbett was at the time working at the Bristol Old Vic where he appeared as Macbeth.

Although the popularity of Steptoe and Son made Corbett a star, it ended his serious acting as he became irreversibly associated with Steptoe in the public eye. Before the series began Corbett had played Shakespeare's Richard II to great acclaim; however, when he played Hamlet in 1970 he felt both critics and audiences alike were not taking him seriously, because they could only see him as Harold Steptoe. Corbett found himself only receiving offers for bawdy comedies or loose parodies of his alter-ego Harold. Production of the sitcom was in the last few years stressful as Brambell was an alcoholic often ill-prepared for rehearsals, forgetting his lines and movements. A tour of a Steptoe and Son stage show in Australia in 1977 proved a disaster due to Brambell's drinking. During the tour the pair appeared in character in an advert for Ajax soap powder.

The TV episodes were remade for radio, often with the original cast − it is these that were made available on tape and CD. After the Steptoe and Son series officially finished, Corbett played the character again on radio (in a newly written sketch in 1978) as well as in a television commercial for Kenco coffee. The two men reunited in January 1981 for one final performance as Steptoe and Son in a further commercial for Kenco.

A heavy smoker all his adult life, Corbett had his first heart attack in 1979. He appeared in pantomime at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, within two days of leaving hospital. He was then badly hurt in a car accident. He appeared shortly afterwards in the BBC detective series Shoestring, his facial injuries obvious.

Corbett's final role was an episode of the Anglia Television/ITV series Tales of the Unexpected, "The Moles". It featured a man who planned to tunnel into a bank, only to find the bank was closed due to industrial action and there was no money in the vaults. Filmed shortly before his death, it was transmitted two months afterwards, in May 1982.

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Who Is Benny Hill?

Who Is Benny Hill?

Alfred Hawthorne Hill, known by his stage name Benny Hill (21 January 1924 – 20 April 1992), was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Benny Hill - Double Date
Benny Hill (Harry) & Jenny Lee-Wright (Ruby) go on a Double Date with Jackie Wright (Paddy) & Rita Webb (Edi).
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British Comedy UK
Posted by British Comedy UK on Thursday, 18 July 2019

Alfred Hawthorne Hill, Jr. was born in Southampton. After leaving school, Hill worked at Woolworth's, as a milkman, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before becoming assistant stage manager with a touring review. He was called up in 1942 and trained as a mechanic, but transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the end of the war.

Benny Hill - Bennys Circus
Benny The Clown entertains with his trained turtle, boomerang cap, a Centaur, Lady Ringmaster, The invisible man, Leopard Girl, skeletons and much more.
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Benny Hill's Angels Benny Hill Fans Benny Hill Show British Comedy UK
Posted by British Comedy UK on Saturday, 13 July 2019

Inspired by the "star comedians" of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to "Benny" in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny.

Benny Hill & The Hot Gossamers
Benny Hill & The Hot Gossamers
Benny Hill TV Benny Hill Show Benny Hill's Angels Benny Hill Show The Benny Hill Show (1955) British Comedy UK
Posted by British Comedy UK on Friday, 21 June 2019

Hill had struggled on stage and had uneven success in radio. But in television he found a form that played to his strengths, allowing him a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with him at the focus of almost every segment. It was to prove one of the great success stories of television comedy, keeping Hill a star for nearly four decades, generating impressive revenues for Thames TV, and remaining a cult series in much of the world long after Hill's death.

Benny Hill - Sale Of The Half-Century
Benny Hill plays Nicholas Parcels in a spoof of the Sale of the Century gameshow which was hosted by Nicholas Parsons.
with Libby Roberts, Jackie Wright & Bella Emberg as the contestants.
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Benny Hill:The Complete 70's shows
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Benny Hill's Angels Benny Hill Show The Benny Hill Show (1955) British Comedy UK
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The show had a music hall-derived format and its humour relied on slapstick, innuendo and parody. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the early 1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. Short, bald Jackie Wright was a frequent supporting player, who in many sketches had to put up with Hill tapping him on the head.

Benny Hill - Spot Black
Benny Hill does some amazing trick shots during this snooker match, until Lesley Goldie distracts him.

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Hill remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where it remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials. The series showcased Hill's talents as an imaginative writer, comic performer and impressionist. He may have bought scripts from various comedy writers but, if so, they never received an onscreen credit (there is evidence that he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, Cherri Gilham, whom he wrote to from Spain and told her he was using her "Fat Lady idea on the show" in January 1977.)

Benny Hill in ETA Nuts advert
NUTS TO YOU!! Benny Hill in an ETA Nuts advert Benny Hill TV The Benny Hill Show (1955) Benny Hill Benny Hill's Angels Benny Hill Fans The Best of Benny Hill
Posted by British Comedy UK on Thursday, 31 August 2017

From the start of the 1980s the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as "Hill's Angels". They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence, or in character as foils against Hill. Sue Upton was one of the longest serving members of the Angels. Henry McGee and Bob Todd joined Jackie Wright as comic supporting players, and the later shows also featured "Hill's Little Angels," a group of cute children including the families of Dennis Kirkland (the show's director) and Sue Upton.



The alternative comedian Ben Elton made a headline-grabbing allegation, both on the TV show Saturday Live and in the pages of Q magazine (in its January 1987 issue), that The Benny Hill Show was single-handedly responsible for the incidences of rape in England during the period in question, and also suggested the programme incited other acts of violence against women. But a writer in The Independent newspaper opined that Elton's assault was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context, and he appeared in a parody for Harry Enfield and Chums, Benny Elton, where Elton ends up being chased by angry women, accompanied by the "Yakety Sax" theme, after trying to force them to be more feminist rather than letting them make their own decisions.



The loss of his show was devastating for Hill (or, as one former supporting player put it, "He started to die from there"[citation needed]) and what followed was a self-inflicted decline in his health. In 1990 a new show was produced complete with Hill and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour: New York!.



Hill died on 20 April 1992, the same day that a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television, for which he was to have made a series of specials. Hill turned down competing offers from Carlton and Thames.

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Who Is Eric Sykes?

Who Is Eric Sykes?

Eric Sykes CBE (4 May 1923 – 4 July 2012) was an English radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and/or performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.

Sykes was born 4 May 1923 in Oldham, Lancashire; his mother died three weeks after his birth. He was the second child of his parents' marriage; his older brother (by two years) was named Vernon. Sykes's father was a labourer in a cotton mill and a former army sergeant. When he was two, his father remarried and he gained a half-brother named John. Sykes was educated at Ward Street Central School in Oldham. He joined the Royal Air Force during World War II, qualifying as a wireless operator with the rank of Leading Aircraftman.

Sykes became partially deaf as an adult. His hearing started to deteriorate in the Second World War, and he had an operation in 1952 followed by another two years later. Recovering from the second procedure he discovered he was profoundly deaf. His spectacles contained no lenses but were a bone-conducting hearing aid. Disciform macular degeneration, brought about by age and possibly smoking, left Sykes partially sighted, and he was registered as blind. He was a patron of the Macular Disease Society. He stopped smoking cigarettes in November 1966, but continued to smoke cigars until 1998. In 2002 he suffered a stroke and underwent heart bypass surgery.

He married Edith Eleanore Milbrandt on 14 February 1952 and they had three daughters, Catherine, Julie, Susan, and a son, David. In the year Sykes died they marked their 60th wedding anniversary.

In the 2005 New Year Honours List, Sykes was promoted within the Order of the British Empire from Officer (OBE) to Commander (CBE) level. He had been awarded an OBE in 1986 for services to drama, following a petition by MPs. Sykes was an honorary president of the Goon Show Preservation Society.

Sykes was a follower of Oldham Athletic and was an honorary director of the club in the 1970s.

Sykes died on the morning of 4 July 2012, aged 89, at his home in Esher, Surrey, England, after a short illness. His family was with him when he died.

Films he created and appeared in
Pantomania, or Dick Whittington (1956)
Opening Night (1956)
Dress Rehearsal (1956)
Closing Night (1957)
Gala Opening (1959)
The Plank (1967)
It's Your Move (1969)
Rhubarb (1969)
Mr. H is Late (1969)
Sykes: With the Lid Off (1971)
Eric Sykes Shows a Few of our Favourite Things (1977)
The Plank (1979)
Rhubarb Rhubarb (1980)
The Likes of Sykes (1980)
If You Go Down in the Woods Today (1981)
It's Your Move (1982)
Mr. H Is Late (1988)
The Big Freeze (1993)

Television series he created and appeared in..

Sykes and a... (1960–65 series)
Sykes and a Big Big Show (1971 series)
Sykes (1972–79 series)

Other acting roles
Orders Are Orders (1954)
Very Important Person (1961)
Kill or Cure (1962)
Village of Daughters (1962)
Heavens Above! (1963)
The Bargee (1964)
One Way Pendulum (1964)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
Rotten to the Core (1965)
The Liquidator (1965)
The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966)
Shalako (1968)
Monte Carlo or Bust (1969)
Theatre of Blood (1973)
The Boys in Blue (1982)
Gabrielle and the Doodleman (1984)
dinnerladies (1999)
Gormenghast (miniseries) (2000)
Mavis and the Mermaid (short film) (2000)
The Others (2001)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
New Tricks (TV) (2007)
My Family (TV) (2007)
Heartbeat (TV) (2007)
Son of Rambow (2007)
Agatha Christie's Poirot: Hallowe'en Party (TV film) (2010)

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