Benny Hill
Encyclopedia
Benny Hill was an English comedian
and actor
, notable for his long-running television
programme The Benny Hill Show
.
, Hampshire
and grew up in Wilton Road in the city's Upper Shirley
district, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II
, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School
, East Way, Bournemouth
, (then Hampshire
, since 1974 Dorset
).
After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously at Woolworth's, as a milkman
in Eastleigh
, Hampshire, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming a prop boy / assistant stage manager with a touring review. He was drafted in 1942 and trained as a mechanic, but transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the end of the war. It was there that he met his future agent, Richard Stone, then a colonel in the service.
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
. Hill began appearing at working men's club
s and Masonic dinners before moving on to nightclub
and theatre jobs. Hill audition
ed for Soho
's famed Windmill Theatre
(home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Hill's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney
's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers
for the role.
anthology
, Benny Hill, which ran from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom
in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare
's A Midsummer Night's Dream
.
He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio
's Light Programme
from 1964 to 1966.
(1956); Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
(1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job
(1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill
(1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms
", (1961), "Pepys' Diary" (song),(1961), "Transistor Radio
" (1961), "Harvest of Love
" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)
" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does
" by the band Genesis
. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)", on the Best of Benny Hill album, was the UK Singles Chart
Christmas number one single in 1971.
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
. He 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 also bought scripts from various comedy writers but they never received an onscreen credit. He had a need to be in sole control of the show. 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.
The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, The 'run-off', which was literally a "running gag
" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Hill as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters, such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion
and time-lapse
techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, Boots Randolph
's "Yakety Sax
", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody
in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta
(2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy
.
From the start of the eighties the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as 'Hills Angels'. They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence, or in character as foils against Hill. Sue Upton
, one of the longest serving members of the Angels, said of Hill, "He was one of the nicest, kindest, most gentle of men to work with". However, the sexual content of the routines contributed to feminist accusations of sexism.
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.
In response to the accusations of sexism, defenders of Hill have said the show used traditional comic stereotypes to reflect universal human truths in a way that was un-malicious and fundamentally harmless. Hill's friend and producer Dennis Kirkland
said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent
quoted Hill and Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.
In an episode about Hill transmitted as part of the documentary series Living Famously, John Howard Davies
, the head of light entertainment at Thames Television who had cancelled the show, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "[T]he audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Hill) was looking a little tired."
The loss of his show totally devastated Hill (or, as one former supporting player put it, "He started to die from there"), and what followed was a self-inflicted terminal 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!.
In February 1992, Thames Television, which received a steady stream of requests from viewers for The Benny Hill Show repeats, finally gave in and put together a number of re-edited shows. 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.
was a fan of Hill's work: Hill had discovered that Chaplin, his childhood idol, was a fan when he was invited to Chaplin's home in Switzerland by Chaplin's family
and discovered that Chaplin had a collection of Hill's work on video. Hill and Dennis Kirkland
were the first outside the family to be invited into Chaplin's private study. Hill was awarded the Charlie Chaplin International Award for Comedy at the 1991 Festival of Comedy in Vevey
, Switzerland.
Radio and TV show host Adam Carolla
claimed that he was a fan of Benny Hill and that he considered Hill "as American as the Beatles
." Indeed, during an episode of The Man Show
, Carolla performed in what was billed as a tribute to "our favourite Englishman, Sir Benny Hill" in a more risqué takeoff of the sketches that Hill popularised. (Note: Hill was never knighted.) Carolla played a rude and lecherous waiter; a role Hill essayed numerous times in his shows—and the sketch featured many of the staples of Hill's shows, including a Jackie Wright
-esque bald man, as well as the usual scantily-clad women.
Michael Jackson
was a Benny Hill fan: "I just love your Benny Hill!" the young Jackson told a bemused English music-press critic during a 1970s tour. "He's so funny!". During Benny Hill's decline in his health he was visited by Jackson, who was in the UK at the time.
In Benny Hill: The World's Favourite Clown, filmed shortly before his death, celebrities such as Burt Reynolds
, Michael Caine
, John Mortimer
, Mickey Rooney
, and Walter Cronkite
, among others, expressed their appreciation of and admiration for Hill and his humour – and in Reynolds' case, the appreciation extended to the Hill's Angels as well. More surprisingly, perhaps, the novelist Anthony Burgess
made no secret of his admiration for Hill. Burgess, whose novels were often comic, relished language, wordplay and dialect, admired the verbal and comedic skill that underlay Hill's success. Reviewing a biography of Hill, Saucy Boy, in the Guardian in 1990, Burgess described Hill as "a comic genius steeped in the British music-hall tradition" and "one of the great artists of our age". A meeting between the two men was described in a newspaper article by Burgess and recalled in the Telegraph newspaper by the satirist Craig Brown
.
In 2006, broadcaster and critic Garry Bushell
launched a campaign to erect a statue of Hill in Southampton
, with the support of Barbara Windsor
, Brian Conley
and other British comedy favourites. Those taking part in the first fundraising concert included Neville Staple, Right Said Fred
and Rick Wakeman
.
In a June 2011 interview in The Observer
, the American rapper Snoop Dogg
declared himself to be a fan of Benny Hill.
In a 2011 interview British actor and director Mark Noyce stated that Benny Hill was his all-time favourite comedian. He was quoted as saying “he was way ahead of his time and an absolute master of his art. I would have loved the opportunity to have met him and I hope he will be remembered as the genius I believe he was.”
in Teddington
, London
, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television
where he recorded his shows.
His mother died in 1976 at age 82, and Hill kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing a thing. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond
area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the one luxury Hill permitted himself; he became a francophile
, enjoying frequent visits to France, and in particular Marseille
, where until the 1980s he could enjoy anonymity in outdoor cafés, on public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, Hill also spoke enough German, Dutch
and Italian to get by when travelling. Such holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, borrowed from regional acts.
. Hill died at the age of 68 on 20 April 1992. On 22 April, after several days of unanswered telephone calls, his producer, Dennis Kirkland, climbed a ladder to the balcony of Hill's 3rd floor apartment and upon seeing the body through a window had the neighbours call the police. The police broke into the apartment and found Hill, dead, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Hill's cause of death was recorded as coronary thrombosis
.
Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton
on 26 April 1992. In October 1992, following rumors that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, it is not generally known whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.
Hill's fortune was estimated at £10 million. His only will, however, dated from 1961 and left his entire estate to his parents, both of whom had since died. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided. A note was found among his belongings assigning huge sums of money to his close friends, but because there was no witness the note had no legal standing.
has not been shown on UK terrestrial, networked television since a tribute season on Channel 4
in 1992, and not on satellite or cable since a run on the now defunct channel Granada Plus – now ITV3 – in 1999. To quote his biographer Mark Lewisohn
, "In Britain, Benny Hill is taboo". In the United States the show has recently been aired on the BBC America
cable channel and over Tribune Broadcasting
's Antenna TV
digital subchannel
network. An Australian channel, Seven Network
, showed some episodes as part of a Great Comedy Classics slot. On the new Australian channel 7TWO
, The Benny Hill Show is shown frequently. In Italy, Sky television broadcasts quite regularly on Comedy Channel. And in Finland the channel MTV3 MAX presents "The Benny Hill Show" every weekend.
In 1998 Channel 4 featured Hill in one of its Heroes Of Comedy programmes.
On 28 December 2006, Channel 4
broadcast the documentary Is Benny Hill Still Funny?. The programme featured an audience that comprised a cross-section
of young adults who had little or no knowledge of Hill, to discover whether Hill's comedy was valid to a generation that enjoyed the likes of Little Britain
, The Catherine Tate Show
and Borat
. The participants were asked to watch a 30-minute compilation that included examples of Hill's humour from both his BBC and ITV shows. The responses and results demonstrated that none of the sample of viewers took offence at any of the sketches shown.
Hill's silent "Wishing Well" sketch was discovered to be the most popular. The alternative comedian Ben Elton
, who had criticised Hill for sexism, was interviewed in the programme. Elton said he still had reservations about certain aspects of Hill's sketches, but claimed to be an admirer of Hill's talent and abilities as a comic performer.
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, notable for his long-running television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
programme The Benny Hill Show
The Benny Hill Show
The Benny Hill Show is a British comedy television show starring Benny Hill.There were various incarnations of the show between 1951 and 1991, and it aired in over 140 countries. The show is generally sketch-based with heavy use of slapstick, mime, parody and double-entendre...
.
Early life
Alfred Hawthorne Hill was born in SouthamptonSouthampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
and grew up in Wilton Road in the city's Upper Shirley
Shirley, Southampton
Shirley is a district on the Western side of Southampton, England. Shirley's main roles are retailing and residential. It is the most important suburban shopping area in the west of the city. Housing is a mixture of council houses in the centre of the district surrounded by private housing, with...
district, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School
Bournemouth School
Bournemouth School , is a boys' grammar school and sixth-form college occupying a site in Charminster, Bournemouth, Dorset, England and teaching children from years 7 to 13...
, East Way, Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
, (then Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, since 1974 Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
).
After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously at Woolworth's, as a milkman
Milkman
A milkman is a person, traditionally male, who delivers milk in milk bottles or cartons. Milk deliveries frequently occur in the morning and it is not uncommon for milkmen to deliver products other than milk such as eggs, cream, cheese, butter, yogurt or soft drinks...
in Eastleigh
Eastleigh
Eastleigh is a railway town in Hampshire, England, and the main town in the Eastleigh borough which is part of Southampton Urban Area. The town lies between Southampton and Winchester, and is part of the South Hampshire conurbation...
, Hampshire, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming a prop boy / assistant stage manager with a touring review. He was drafted in 1942 and trained as a mechanic, but transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the end of the war. It was there that he met his future agent, Richard Stone, then a colonel in the service.
Inspired by the "star comedians" of British music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
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
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
. Hill began appearing at working men's club
Working men's club
Working men's clubs are a type of private social club founded in the 19th century in industrial areas of the United Kingdom, particularly the North of England, the Midlands and many parts of the South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class men and their families.-...
s and Masonic dinners before moving on to nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
and theatre jobs. Hill audition
Audition
An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...
ed for Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
's famed Windmill Theatre
Windmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street, London. The theatre was famous for its nude tableaux vivants...
(home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Hill's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney
Reg Varney
Reginald Alfred "Reg" Varney was an English actor, most notable for his role as Stan Butler in 1970s TV sitcom On the Buses.-Early life:...
's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
for the role.
Career
Between the end of World War II and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1950. In addition, he attempted a sitcomSituation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, Benny Hill, which ran from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom
Nick Bottom
Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play, and is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of an ass by the elusive Puck within the play.- Overview :...
in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
.
He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
's Light Programme
BBC Light Programme
The Light Programme was a BBC radio station which broadcast mainstream light entertainment and music from 1945 until 1967, when it was rebranded as BBC Radio 2...
from 1964 to 1966.
Films and recordings
Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Who Done It?Who Done It? (1956 film)
Who Done It? is a 1956 British comedy film starring comedian Benny Hill.-Cast:* Benny Hill as Hugo Dill* Belinda Lee as Frankie Mayne* David Kossoff as Zacco* Garry Marsh as Detective Inspector Hancock* George Margo as Barakov...
(1956); Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is a 1965 British comedy film starring Stuart Whitman and directed and co-written by Ken Annakin...
(1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...
(1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job
The Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
(1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill
The Best of Benny Hill
The Best of Benny Hill is a 1974 film spinoff from the television comedy series The Benny Hill Show. This movie features sketches from the early Thames Television years from 1969-1973...
(1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms
Gather in the Mushrooms
"Gather in the Mushrooms" is a comedy song by Benny Hill, recorded and released by Pye Records in 1961, under the production of Tony Hatch. It reached #12 on the UK Singles Chart....
", (1961), "Pepys' Diary" (song),(1961), "Transistor Radio
Transistor Radio (song)
"Transistor Radio" was a comic song written by Benny Hill and Mark Anthony , and performed by Hill. The song revolved around the story of a man whose attempts at intimacy with his girlfriend are constantly thwarted by music played from the girl's transistor radio...
" (1961), "Harvest of Love
Harvest of Love
"The Harvest Of Love" is a short comedy song, co-written and originally performed by Benny Hill, released on Pye Records . The other writer was shown as "M. Anthony", a pseudonym for the producer, Tony Hatch. The song was a #20 hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1963, and has appeared on several...
" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)
Ernie (the Fastest Milkman in the West)
"Ernie " is an innuendo-laden comedy or novelty song, written and performed by the English comedian Benny Hill...
" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does
Anything She Does
"Anything She Does" is a song by the British band Genesis. It appears as the fifth track on their highly successful 1986 album Invisible Touch, opening the second side of the vinyl and cassette editions. The lyrics were written by keyboard player Tony Banks....
" by the band Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...
. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)", on the Best of Benny Hill album, was the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
Christmas number one single in 1971.
The Benny Hill Show
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.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
Patricia Hayes
Patricia Lawlor Hayes, OBE was an English comedy actress.Hayes was born in Streatham, London. As a child Hayes attended Sacred Heart School in Wandsworth....
, Jeremy Hawk
Jeremy Hawk
Jeremy Hawk was a character actor with a long career in music halls and on London's West End stage...
, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody
Ronnie Brody
Ronnie Brody was a British actor who appeared in many comedy television series and films.His film appearances included: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Carry On Loving and The Beatles film Help!....
, and his co-writer from the early 1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman
Dave Freeman (writer)
Dave Freeman was a British film and television writer, working chiefly in comedy.As well as writing sketches for comedians such as Tony Hancock and Arthur Askey, Freeman wrote screenplays for comedies including Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon and Carry On Behind as well as being a regular...
. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
station ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
, 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 also bought scripts from various comedy writers but they never received an onscreen credit. He had a need to be in sole control of the show. There is evidence that he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, Cherri Gilham
Cherri Gilham
Cherri Gilham , also known as Cheryl Gilham, also known as Cherry Gilham is a former comedy actress, who was one of the first Page 3 Girls and is now a writer and musician.- Modeling and acting career :...
, whom he wrote to from Spain and told her he was using her "Fat Lady idea on the show" in January 1977.
The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, The 'run-off', which was literally a "running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Hill as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters, such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
and time-lapse
Time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, Boots Randolph
Boots Randolph
Homer Louis "Boots" Randolph III was an American musician best known for his 1963 saxophone hit, "Yakety Sax"...
's "Yakety Sax
Yakety Sax
"Yakety Sax" is a piece of music written by James Q. "Spider" Rich and popularized by saxophonist Boots Randolph.The composition includes pieces of assorted fiddle tunes such as "Chicken Reel", and was written for a performance at a venue called The Armory in Hopkinsville, Kentucky...
", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta (film)
V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...
(2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy
The Gods Must Be Crazy
The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 film, written and directed by Jamie Uys. The film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series of films. Set in Botswana and South Africa, it tells the story of Xi, a Sho of the Kalahari Desert whose band has no knowledge of the world beyond...
.
From the start of the eighties the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as 'Hills Angels'. They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence, or in character as foils against Hill. Sue Upton
Sue Upton
Sue Upton is an English comic actress and dancer, best known for her many appearances on The Benny Hill Show. She was one of the longest-serving cast members of Benny Hill's stock company, appearing on the show from 1977 to his final programme for Thames Television in 1989...
, one of the longest serving members of the Angels, said of Hill, "He was one of the nicest, kindest, most gentle of men to work with". However, the sexual content of the routines contributed to feminist accusations of sexism.
The alternative comedian
Alternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
made a headline-grabbing allegation, both on the TV show Saturday Live and in the pages of Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
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
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
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.
In response to the accusations of sexism, defenders of Hill have said the show used traditional comic stereotypes to reflect universal human truths in a way that was un-malicious and fundamentally harmless. Hill's friend and producer Dennis Kirkland
Dennis Kirkland
Dennis Kirkland was a British television producer and director who was best known for his long association with comedian Benny Hill....
said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
quoted Hill and Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.
In an episode about Hill transmitted as part of the documentary series Living Famously, John Howard Davies
John Howard Davies
John Howard Davies was an English television director and producer and former child actor.Davies was born in Paddington, London, the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies...
, the head of light entertainment at Thames Television who had cancelled the show, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "[T]he audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Hill) was looking a little tired."
The loss of his show totally devastated Hill (or, as one former supporting player put it, "He started to die from there"), and what followed was a self-inflicted terminal 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!.
In February 1992, Thames Television, which received a steady stream of requests from viewers for The Benny Hill Show repeats, finally gave in and put together a number of re-edited shows. 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.
Celebrity fans
Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
was a fan of Hill's work: Hill had discovered that Chaplin, his childhood idol, was a fan when he was invited to Chaplin's home in Switzerland by Chaplin's family
Chaplin family
The Chaplin family is an English/American/Swiss acting family. There are the descendants of Hannah Chaplin, chiefly known as the mother of Charlie Chaplin, the Academy Award-winning English comedic actor and filmmaker. Hannah Chaplin's mother was half-Roma...
and discovered that Chaplin had a collection of Hill's work on video. Hill and Dennis Kirkland
Dennis Kirkland
Dennis Kirkland was a British television producer and director who was best known for his long association with comedian Benny Hill....
were the first outside the family to be invited into Chaplin's private study. Hill was awarded the Charlie Chaplin International Award for Comedy at the 1991 Festival of Comedy in Vevey
Vevey
Vevey is a town in Switzerland in the canton Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne.It was the seat of the district of the same name until 2006, and is now part of the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District...
, Switzerland.
Radio and TV show host Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla is an American radio personality, television host, comedian, and actor. He currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast on the ACE Broadcasting Network...
claimed that he was a fan of Benny Hill and that he considered Hill "as American as the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
." Indeed, during an episode of The Man Show
The Man Show
The Man Show is an American comedy television show on Comedy Central. It was created in 1999 by its two original co-hosts, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla, and their executive producer Daniel Kellison.-Format:...
, Carolla performed in what was billed as a tribute to "our favourite Englishman, Sir Benny Hill" in a more risqué takeoff of the sketches that Hill popularised. (Note: Hill was never knighted.) Carolla played a rude and lecherous waiter; a role Hill essayed numerous times in his shows—and the sketch featured many of the staples of Hill's shows, including a Jackie Wright
Jackie Wright
John "Jackie" Wright was an Irish comedian, best known for being the bald-headed sidekick of Benny Hill on his television programme for one and a half decades...
-esque bald man, as well as the usual scantily-clad women.
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
was a Benny Hill fan: "I just love your Benny Hill!" the young Jackson told a bemused English music-press critic during a 1970s tour. "He's so funny!". During Benny Hill's decline in his health he was visited by Jackson, who was in the UK at the time.
In Benny Hill: The World's Favourite Clown, filmed shortly before his death, celebrities such as Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
, Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
, John Mortimer
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
, Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
, and Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
, among others, expressed their appreciation of and admiration for Hill and his humour – and in Reynolds' case, the appreciation extended to the Hill's Angels as well. More surprisingly, perhaps, the novelist Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
made no secret of his admiration for Hill. Burgess, whose novels were often comic, relished language, wordplay and dialect, admired the verbal and comedic skill that underlay Hill's success. Reviewing a biography of Hill, Saucy Boy, in the Guardian in 1990, Burgess described Hill as "a comic genius steeped in the British music-hall tradition" and "one of the great artists of our age". A meeting between the two men was described in a newspaper article by Burgess and recalled in the Telegraph newspaper by the satirist Craig Brown
Craig Brown (satirist)
Craig Edward Moncrieff Brown is a British critic and satirist from England, probably best known for his work in Private Eye.-Biography:...
.
In 2006, broadcaster and critic Garry Bushell
Garry Bushell
Garry Bushell is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author and political activist. Bushell also sings in the Oi! band The Gonads and manages the New York City Oi! band Maninblack. Bushell's recurring themes are comedy, country and class...
launched a campaign to erect a statue of Hill in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, with the support of Barbara Windsor
Barbara Windsor
Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE , better known by her stage name Barbara Windsor, is an English actress. Her best known roles are in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders....
, Brian Conley
Brian Conley
Brian Conley is an English comedian, television presenter, singer and actor. At the peak of his television career, he was the highest-paid male television personality in the UK. Outside of television, he is best known for his frequent portrayals of Buttons in pantomime versions of...
and other British comedy favourites. Those taking part in the first fundraising concert included Neville Staple, Right Said Fred
Right Said Fred
Right Said Fred is an English pop band, formed in 1989 by brothers Richard Fairbrass and Fred Fairbrass, later joined by their friend Rob Manzoli. The group is named after a song of the same name which was a hit for Bernard Cribbins in 1962...
and Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
.
In a June 2011 interview in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, the American rapper Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. , better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school...
declared himself to be a fan of Benny Hill.
In a 2011 interview British actor and director Mark Noyce stated that Benny Hill was his all-time favourite comedian. He was quoted as saying “he was way ahead of his time and an absolute master of his art. I would have loved the opportunity to have met him and I hope he will be remembered as the genius I believe he was.”
Personal life
Hill never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was turned down by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton, he never owned his own home in London, nor a car. Hill preferred to rent a place to live rather than buy one, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flatApartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
in Teddington
Teddington
Teddington is a suburban area in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south west London, on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television
Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios is a large British television studio complex located in Teddington, South-West London, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on BBC television, ITV, and Channel 4 along with others...
where he recorded his shows.
His mother died in 1976 at age 82, and Hill kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing a thing. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is a London borough in South West London, UK, which forms part of Outer London. It is unique because it is the only London borough situated both north and south of the River Thames.-Settlement:...
area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the one luxury Hill permitted himself; he became a francophile
Francophile
Is a person with a positive predisposition or interest toward the government, culture, history, or people of France. This could include France itself and its history, the French language, French cuisine, literature, etc...
, enjoying frequent visits to France, and in particular Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, where until the 1980s he could enjoy anonymity in outdoor cafés, on public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, Hill also spoke enough German, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and Italian to get by when travelling. Such holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, borrowed from regional acts.
Death
Hill's health began to decline in the early 1980s, and after suffering a mild heart attack on February 24, 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose weight and recommended a heart bypass. He declined, and a week later was found to have kidney failureRenal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...
. Hill died at the age of 68 on 20 April 1992. On 22 April, after several days of unanswered telephone calls, his producer, Dennis Kirkland, climbed a ladder to the balcony of Hill's 3rd floor apartment and upon seeing the body through a window had the neighbours call the police. The police broke into the apartment and found Hill, dead, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Hill's cause of death was recorded as coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis is a form of thrombosis affecting the coronary circulation. It is associated with stenosis subsequent to clotting. The condition is considered as a type of ischaemic heart disease.It can lead to a myocardial infarction...
.
Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
on 26 April 1992. In October 1992, following rumors that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, it is not generally known whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.
Hill's fortune was estimated at £10 million. His only will, however, dated from 1961 and left his entire estate to his parents, both of whom had since died. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided. A note was found among his belongings assigning huge sums of money to his close friends, but because there was no witness the note had no legal standing.
Posthumous reception
Although still shown worldwide, The Benny Hill ShowThe Benny Hill Show
The Benny Hill Show is a British comedy television show starring Benny Hill.There were various incarnations of the show between 1951 and 1991, and it aired in over 140 countries. The show is generally sketch-based with heavy use of slapstick, mime, parody and double-entendre...
has not been shown on UK terrestrial, networked television since a tribute season on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in 1992, and not on satellite or cable since a run on the now defunct channel Granada Plus – now ITV3 – in 1999. To quote his biographer Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn is an English author and historian, regarded as the world's leading authority on the English rock band The Beatles.-The Beatles and related subjects:...
, "In Britain, Benny Hill is taboo". In the United States the show has recently been aired on the BBC America
BBC America
BBC America is an American television network, owned and operated by BBC Worldwide, and available on both cable and satellite.-History:The channel launched on March 29, 1998, broadcasting comedy, drama and lifestyle programs from BBC Television and other British television broadcasters like ITV and...
cable channel and over Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting
The Tribune Broadcasting Company is a group of radio and television stations located throughout the United States which are owned and operated by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune newspaper.- History :Tribune Broadcasting...
's Antenna TV
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
digital subchannel
Digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...
network. An Australian channel, Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
, showed some episodes as part of a Great Comedy Classics slot. On the new Australian channel 7TWO
7Two
7TWO is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel which was launched by the Seven Network on Sunday 1 November 2009 at 12pm....
, The Benny Hill Show is shown frequently. In Italy, Sky television broadcasts quite regularly on Comedy Channel. And in Finland the channel MTV3 MAX presents "The Benny Hill Show" every weekend.
In 1998 Channel 4 featured Hill in one of its Heroes Of Comedy programmes.
On 28 December 2006, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
broadcast the documentary Is Benny Hill Still Funny?. The programme featured an audience that comprised a cross-section
Cross-sectional data
Cross-sectional data or cross section in statistics and econometrics is a type of one-dimensional data set. Cross-sectional data refers to data collected by observing many subjects at the same point of time, or without regard to differences in time...
of young adults who had little or no knowledge of Hill, to discover whether Hill's comedy was valid to a generation that enjoyed the likes of Little Britain
Little Britain
Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas...
, The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show is a British television sketch comedy written by Catherine Tate and Aschlin Ditta. Tate also stars in all but one of the show's sketches, which feature a wide range of characters. The Catherine Tate Show airs on BBC Two and is shown worldwide through the BBC...
and Borat
Borat
Borat Sagdiyev is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen...
. The participants were asked to watch a 30-minute compilation that included examples of Hill's humour from both his BBC and ITV shows. The responses and results demonstrated that none of the sample of viewers took offence at any of the sketches shown.
Hill's silent "Wishing Well" sketch was discovered to be the most popular. The alternative comedian Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
, who had criticised Hill for sexism, was interviewed in the programme. Elton said he still had reservations about certain aspects of Hill's sketches, but claimed to be an admirer of Hill's talent and abilities as a comic performer.
External links
- Benny Hill - Daily Telegraph obituary
- Benny Hill page at the Museum of Broadcast CommunicationsMuseum of Broadcast CommunicationsThe Museum of Broadcast Communications is an American museum that currently exists exclusively on the Internet and not in any physical capacity. Its stated mission is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain...
- The Benny Hill Show page at the Museum of Broadcast CommunicationsMuseum of Broadcast CommunicationsThe Museum of Broadcast Communications is an American museum that currently exists exclusively on the Internet and not in any physical capacity. Its stated mission is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain...
- The Eastleigh Photograph Archive Photos of the dairy and streets where Benny worked as a milkman, inspiring the song Ernie (The fastest milkman in the west)
- The Benny Hill Songbook Lyrics, guitar chords and transcripts
- Benny's Place featuring Louise English & Hill's Angels A tribute to Benny Hill and his beautiful ladies known as Hill's Angels
- Laughterlog.com Article with complete list of appearances on television, radio and record
- BBC Hampshire BBC article on Benny Hill's Hampshire connections