Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 18 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor, writer and musician. He is best remembered for his television programme The Benny Hill Show, a comedy variety show merging slapstick, burlesque, double entendre and innuendo in live and filmed segments with Hill in almost every one.

The BFI called Hill "the first British comedian to attain fame through television" and "a major star for over forty years". The Benny Hill Show, which debuted in 1955, was among the most-watched programmes in the UK; his audience was more than 21 million in 1971. The show was also exported to over 100 countries, a global appeal which the BFI attributed to "Hill's emphasis on visual humour transcending language barriers".

Hill received a BAFTA Television Award for Best Writer and a Rose d'Or, and he was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety. In 1990 Anthony Burgess described Hill as "a comic genius steeped in the British music hall tradition".

Outside television, Hill starred in films including the Ealing comedy Who Done It? (1956), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and The Italian Job (1969). His comedy song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)", was 1971's Christmas number one on the UK singles chart and earned Hill an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1972.

Early life Alfred Hawthorne Hill was born 21 January 1924 (although some sources give his birth year as 1925) in Southampton, Hampshire. His father, Alfred Hill (1893–1972), manager of a surgical appliance shop, He was called up in 1942 and trained as a mechanic in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, British Army. He served as a mechanic, truck driver and searchlight operator in Normandy after September 1944, and transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the end of the war.

Inspired by the "star comedians" of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. He took the nickname of "Benny" in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. His first job in theatre was as Reg Varney's straight man, with Hill beating a then unknown Peter Sellers to the role. Eddie in August (1970, TV, short, co-director, writer) – Eddie The Best of Benny Hill (1974) compilation of The Benny Hill Show episodes (1969–1973)

Recordings Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms" (1961), "Pepys' Diary" (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963) and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)", which was the UK Christmas number one single in 1971. He received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1972. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody and his cowriter from the early 1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman.

Hill remained mostly with the BBC until 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV and ATV stations between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969 his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where it remained until its 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. (Some evidence indicates he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, Cherri Gilham, to whom he wrote from Spain, telling her he was using her "Fat Lady" idea on the show in January 1977.)

Johnny Carson and sidekick Ed McMahon were both fans of Hill and tried several times to get him to travel to Los Angeles to be a guest on Carson's The Tonight Show.

Radio and TV host Adam Carolla said that he was a fan of Hill whom he considered "as American as the Beatles". During an episode of The Man Show in 2000, Carolla performed in what was billed as a tribute to "our favourite Englishman, Sir Benny Hill" (sic; Hill was never knighted), in more risqué versions of some of the sketches. Carolla played a rude and lecherous waiter, a typical Hill role, and the sketch featured many of the staples of Hill's shows, including a Jackie Wright-esque bald man, as well as scantily clad women.

During a British tour in the 1970s, Michael Jackson said in an interview that he was a fan of Hill. Jackson would meet Hill in 1992. In 1987, Genesis filmed a video for their song "Anything She Does", featuring Hill as his character Fred Scuttle, portraying an incompetent security guard who lets a ridiculous number of fans backstage at a Genesis concert. In a June 2011 interview with The Observer, the rapper Snoop Dogg declared himself to be a fan of Hill. Busta Rhymes paid tribute to Hill while on the red carpet at the 2024 MTV EMAs in Manchester, England.

In the Omnibus episode, "Benny Hill – Clown Imperial", filmed shortly before his death, several celebrities, including Burt Reynolds, Michael Caine, John Mortimer, Mickey Rooney and Walter Cronkite, among others, expressed their appreciation of and admiration for Hill and his humour. In Reynolds' case, the appreciation extended to the Hill's Angels as well. The novelist Anthony Burgess was also an admirer of Hill. Burgess, whose novels were often comic, relished language, wordplay and dialect, and he 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" (as were Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, two of Hill's childhood idols) and "one of the great artists of our age".

Personal life

Before I quit that job (at the Woolworth's store in Southampton) it had two big effects on me....I fell in love and I learned about people...The girl I fell in love with was Jean, two years my senior. The romance did not last, because her attitude towards me was one of amused tolerance. 'You make me laugh, sonny boy,' she used to say... [On Benny's observance of people:] That comes naturally when you work in a chain store, because you meet thousands of people. Unconsciously, at first, I began to notice foibles and mannerisms. I began to develop a mirror-like memory for faces and voices. —Benny Hill

Hill was noted for his frugality. He never owned his own house in London and preferred to rent a flat rather than buy one. in Kensington, London, for 26 years until around 1986, when he moved to Fairwater House in Teddington, near Teddington Studios. While looking for somewhere to live, he briefly stayed at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton, the town of his birth.

Despite being a multi-millionaire he continued with the frugal habits he had picked up from his parents, such as buying food at supermarkets, walking for miles rather than paying for a taxi unless someone else paid for a limousine and regularly patching and mending his clothes.

Hill never married and had no children. He had proposed to three women but none accepted. Rumours circulated that he was gay but he always denied them.

Hill was a Francophile and enjoyed visits to France, particularly Marseille, where, until the 1980s, he could go to outdoor cafes anonymously, travelling on public transport and socialising with local women. but his body was not found until two days later. The official cause of death was recorded as coronary thrombosis.

Hill's estate was probated at £7,548,192. Ultimately, Hill's estate was divided among his seven nieces and nephews.

During the night of 4 October 1992, following speculation that Hill had been buried with a large amount of gold and jewellery, grave robbers exhumed and broke open Hill's coffin. The coffin was reburied and covered with a thick concrete slab.

Legacy He was a God of British comedy. It's a real skill to make the whole world laugh like he did. — —Garry Bushell, TV critic

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 his comedy was valid to a generation that enjoyed the likes of Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and Borat. The participants favourably rated a 30-minute compilation that included examples of Hill's humour from his BBC and ITV shows.

In November 2021, That's TV announced that The Benny Hill Show would feature in its Christmas schedule, alongside other ITV programmes, such as Beadle's About and Kenny Everett's New Year Specials. In addition to operating a number of local television channels on Freeview, That's TV had another national slot on channel 65, meaning that Hill's show would be seen in full, nationwide on British television, for the first time for nearly 20 years.