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114 - Obituary:
Comedian. Born Alfred
Hill, on January 21, 1925, in Southampton, England.
An enthusiastic performer in school shows, Hill
held jobs as a milkman and drummer before moving to
London at the age of 16. While working as a theatre
manager, he began developing his comedic skills,
eventually making his stage debut in the 1941
production of Stars in Battledress. Taking his
stage name from Jack Benny, Hill later followed the
traditional route of many comedians by performing
in revues at music halls and men's clubs.
----An early proponent
of television, Hill began hosting a handful of
variety programs for the British Broadcasting
Company in the early 1950s. In 1956, he made his
cinematic debut in Who Done It?, a rather
disappointing comedy that featured him in the role
of a zany private detective. Hill soon became a
fixture on late-night TV, while landing occasional
film roles in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying
Machines (1965) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968).
----In 1969, Hill
gained national popularity with the saucy The Benny
Hill Show&emdash;a comedy series rife with his
trademark bawdy humor and sexual innuendoes. The
slapstick skits often featured Hill's classic comic
personae, like Captain Fred Scuttle and Professor
Marvel, as well as a supporting cast of scantily
clad women (commonly referred to as "Hill's
Angels").
---- Throughout the
1970s, Hill continued to work on the highly rated
The Benny Hill Show. In 1979, many of these
hour-long comedy specials were edited to half-hour
segments and introduced to American television
audiences. Although Hill's lascivious antics were
thought to be vulgar and sexist by many, the show
immediately gained an international following and
remained in network syndication until the late
1980s.
---- Plagued with a
chronic heart condition, Hill died on April 20,
1992; he was 67 years old.
----What followed
Benny Hill's death was as confused as his
life. When he passed on, his estate was worth
an estimated 10M pounds. The beneficiary
obvious to those close to him was Sue Upton who was
dearly loved by Benny. Sadly, the only will
Benny created left his estate to his parents.
They, however, were long gone. Next in line
were his brother and sister Leonard and Diana
neither of whom he'd enjoyed the closest of
relationships with. They too were dead.
So, the money, approximately 7.5M pounds was
divided among his seven nieces and nephews.
----It may interest
you to know that a note was found among Benny's
belongings assigning huge sums of money to Sue
Upton, Louise English, Henry McGee, Bob Todd and
Dennis Kirkland. Sadly, because it was
neither signed or witnessed, the note had no legal
standing.
///
BENNY HILL
Premier UK
----He was a saucy
seaside postcard come to life, a comedian with a
naughty choirboy's smirk and gift for choreographed
slapstick that nearly always involved girls with
unfeasibly large breasts. In earlier life he'd been
a milkman (source of his hit song "Ernie") before
following the classic English comic's route of
working men's clubs, revues and end-of-the-pier
shows. In the 1950s he became an early star of TV,
showing an intuitive awareness of the new medium's
visual potential. For more than 30 years The Benny
Hill Show was a kind of national institution.
----In this
penetrating study of the comic's life (the first of
five portraits of the famously funny) learn why, in
the 1980s, Hill was suddenly discarded by the
British TV Mafia. And discover how his old TV
shows, sold around the world, launched him in
bewildered middle age as an international
celebrity.
----The show aired
Sunday 25th February at 7pm
----The Biography
Channel broadcasts between 6am - 12 midnight on Sky
digital.
///
BENNY HILL: LAUGHTER AND
CONTROVERSY The program chronicled the life of the
man who, for millions of fans, was the funniest man
in the world. Benny Hill shows sold to over 140
countries around the world, and his audience could
be counted in billions. Born in a small town on
Britain's south coast, his childhood dream was to
be the star of the show - like his childhood hero
Charlie Chaplin. It was a dream that became an
obsession as his every waking hour was devoted to
his comedy.
----BIOGRAPHY: BENNY
HILL: LAUGHTER AND CONTROVERSY recounted that
comedy made Benny rich. Yet he had no use for the
trappings of success. He never owned a house or a
car. His most treasured possessions were his
television and VCR. Twice rejected by the women he
proposed to, he never married. At age 68, he died
alone watching TV in the apartment he'd rented to
be near his beloved studios. Insights and memories
about Benny's life are shared by friends Dave
Freeman, Kenneth Ball, Phoebe King, and Sue Upton;
comedian Reg Varney; producer/director Dennis
Kirkland; Henry McGee; and child actress Joanna
Kirkland.
///
LONDON&emdash;Calling for "a
new, more open era in British rule" and citing the
need for "a time of healing for past
transgressions," prime minister Tony Blair
announced Monday that the British government will
declassify and release the so-called "unexpurgated"
Benny Hill tapes, ending over 15 years of public
outcry and government cover-ups concerning their
scandalous content.
----Banned by Margaret
Thatcher in 1982 for being "too cheeky" for public
consumption, the controversial tapes allegedly
contain over 150 hours of footage of well-known
British public figure Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill
engaged in a variety of "compromising" situations,
including bawdy musical numbers, saucy wordplay,
and broad physical slapstick, much of it of a
sexual nature.
----Hill, formally
denounced by Thatcher and Parliament in 1983, died
in 1992 when a pair of oversized inflatable novelty
bloomers he was wearing exploded upon contact with
a haystack.
----"Only by being
open and honest about our nation's past mistakes
can we ensure that they do not repeat themselves in
the future," Blair, the first Labor Party member to
head Britain after years of Conservative rule, told
reporters at a 10 Downing Street press conference.
"Releasing these tapes is the first step on the
road toward a collective national healing, toward a
glorious day when the honking, staccato melody of
Boots Randolph's 'Yakety Sax' no longer haunts the
collective memory of our nation."
----Among the
"violations of decency and good taste" captured on
the now-declassified tapes: repeated use of
oversized artificial prop breasts (see photo);
reckless overuse of the "Mahna-Mahna" song;
high-speed dubbing of dialogue to create a
"quacking" effect; and, most seriously, the willful
alteration of nearly two dozen publicly posted
signs, including the changing of one reading
"Georgie's Tarts and Crumpets" to read "Orgies,
Tarts and Strumpets."
----"The kind of
vandalism in which Hill regularly partakes on these
tapes is positively unconscionable," said Sir
Fentwick Creighton-Thorpe of the London Commission
of Registries.
----Particularly
disgraceful, Creighton-Thorpe said, is a segment in
which a sign reading "Therapist" is manipulated to
read "The rapist." "Such misrepresentation," he
said, "could severely damage the proprietor of the
sign's reputation as a provider of counseling."
----Another highly
controversial aspect of the tapes is the frequent
appearance of the "Hill's Angels," a chorus line of
scantily clad dancers whose alleged gyrations
sparked a 1994 U.N. petition for full disclosure of
the tapes.
----The
dancers&emdash;whose propensity for provocative leg
splits and slow, lascivious writhing near poles and
ladders can be seen throughout the
tapes&emdash;have long been regarded by British
leaders as "a potentially devastating source of
international embarrassment."
----"The so-called
'Hill's Angels' parts of the tapes, inasmuch as the
models position themselves in reproductively
suggestive poses and make flagrant and suggestive
eye contact with the camera, appear, in all
likelihood, to have been deliberately edited into
the footage with clear and demonstrable gratuitous
intent," said Archibald Binway of the London
Protocol Office. "Such open acknowledgement of the
female anatomy by a British national is an
unthinkable breach of the public trust."
----The tapes' release
sparked celebration among the many activists who
have fought to have them exposed.
----"At last, the
truth about Hill is revealed before the entire
world," said Sean Wright, whose near-fatal 1987
hunger strike as one of the infamous "Benny 11"
helped raise international awareness of the
cover-up.
----"That bastard
slapped me granddad upwards of 1,500 times back in
the '70s. And why? Because his short stature made
him an easy target? Because his bald, shiny head,
God bless it, made a humorous thwacking sound when
smacked with an open palm?"
----Wright's
grandfather, veteran stage performer Jackie Wright,
has become an enduring symbol of Hill's legacy of
abuse toward the elderly.
----But even as the
facts of Hill's abuses come to light, there remain
some who maintain that Hill was a victim of
circumstance. Sympathizer Edwin Fripp, 42, of
Leeds, contends that Hill's scandalous behavior
was, in many cases, unintended.
----"When Mr. Hill
grabbed women's chests, it would usually be as the
result of an accident: Often, he'd do so unaware of
the fact that a mannequin he'd been undressing had
been switched with a real woman while his back was
turned," Fripp said. "And that time he was caught
entering a women's changing room at the beach, he
did not do so out of a desire to see women naked.
No, it was also an accident, as the letters 'w' and
'o' on a sign labeled 'Women' were covered with a
towel."
----"In each of these
cases, Mr. Hill received vicious, angry slaps from
outraged women, even though he did not deserve
their attacks, having committed no intentional
wrongdoing," Fripp said. "Must we continue to heap
blame upon the memory of a man who has already been
punished enough?"
----Such apologist
voices, however, are clearly in the minority.
----"In perhaps the
most controversial portion of the tapes, the
so-called 'chase' scene, there is little doubt that
Hill is acting with premeditated malicious intent,"
said Kyle Dunkirk, one of the leaders in the legal
battle for the tapes' release. "Lasciviously
chasing a trio of nurses across a tree-lined field,
Hill steps up his pursuit as the women become
entangled in branches, causing them to lose
progressively more and more layers of outerwear
until they are clad only in brassieres, stockings,
garters, and knickers. As the chase goes on, more
and more people join in, including a man with one
foot stuck in a bucket, a policeman covered in
cake, and, eventually, even the outraged wives of
the male pursuants. All the while, Hill remains
relentless in his amorous pursuit, oblivious to the
protests of all parties."
----"These tapes add
insult to injury," Dunkirk said, "as fast-motion
photography lends a jerky, inhuman quality to the
chase participants' motions as they proceed
single-file into the sunset."
----Whatever the
societal ramifications of the scandalous footage's
release, one thing is clear: The haunting image of
those fast-motion runners will remain etched in the
conscience of Britain, and the world, for a long
time to come.
///
Respectfully
Submitted
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, Associated Press, Reuters,
BBC, LA Times, NY Times, VRA's D-Diaries, Press
Releases, They Said It Tracking Model, and
SmartSearch were used in compiling and ascertaining
this Yes90 news report. Biograph
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