Benny Hill Tribute
by William Brown

Alfred Hawthorne Hill
(21 January 1924 - 20 April 1992)

IMDB Entry

Left: Another famous character of Benny, Mr. Chow Mein, as he appeared in "Chinese Package Tours".

Broadcast: March 23, 1977.

Welcome to the All-New Benny Hill Tribute.

I had written a tribute to Benny here quite some time ago, but it was brief and not very indepth. I decided that it needed to be revised and I could think of no one more capable than our own William Brown to do the job. He has also used some of the material I had written in the original in this new tribute. I have done the photos you see on these four pages as a Tribute to Benny's mastery of so many characters during his twenty years at Thames Television. Hopefully fans will see this as a fitting Tribute to Benny. For a more indepth look at the characters that Benny did over the years, check out the Faces of Benny Hill Pages.

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This gallery includes segues from the Crazy World Of Benny Hill. The photos and text for the gallery were put together by William Brown. In order to accomodate those who do not have Pop-Up Support in their browsers, there are two links for each gallery. The Photos in the gallery are 500 pixels wide by 357 pixels high.

Part Two

Benny as "Hercule Poirot"
in "Murder On The Oregon Express".
Broadcast: March 24, 1976.

Hill and Dave Freeman also crafted a series of TV advertisements for Schweppes beverages which ran in Britain for several years, and are regarded today as highly influential in the advertising field. In his later years, Benny would do ads for different products in different countries.

After his obligations to Bernard Delfont and ATV ended, Mr. Hill went back to the BBC in earnest. Starting with his early 1961 series, he began incorporating outdoor location filming into his shows, with a number of such sketches being "undercranked" so that, played back, the action was extremely fast. One sketch had him impersonating Violet Carson's "Ena Sharples" character from a then-new soap opera called Coronation Street, using the actual hair net from the character for his impersonation. He also began doing parodies of TV commercials, for which he would also become famous. On his March 4, 1961 show, he aired a parody of Juke Box Jury (his version was called "Soap Box Jury") that broke new ground in television. Filmed over three painstaking days at the BBC's Ealing studios (where he previously filmed his Who Done It? feature), Hill impersonated his onetime early straight man (and bona fide Juke Box Jury host), David Jacobs, as well as the four panelists and certain members of the audience. The final shot saw four Bennys, all cavorting on the screen at once, an effect accomplished by running the film four times with certain parts of the lens blocked while filming the sequence. Technically and otherwise, this was highly influential and would be replicated, not only by Hill but by other comedians, forever after.

Benny as Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool" from "Humphrey Bumphrey: Continuity Announcer".
Broadcast: April 21, 1976.

Even so, by the end of 1961 the BBC became convinced that the variety show format was dying and that the future lay in situation comedies, and cited as proof shows fronted by Tony Hancock (Hancock's Half-Hour), Carry On mainstay Sid James (Citizen James), and a new show about to be developed called Till Death Us Do Part. Benny was being urged to go that route; he agreed, but on the following provisos (or provisi): That he play a different character every week in what amounted to a sitcom/anthology format, and that his output per series be limited to half the usual run of 13 shows (as was customary in England at the time). From 1962 to 1963, he acted in 19 such episodes, all under the umbrella of Benny Hill. Only two episodes survive today, including the premiere episode, "Portrait of a Bridegroom." Among the players who appeared on this incarnation included Ronnie Barker, later to be one half of The Two Ronnies; two future co-stars of Are You Being Served?, Frank Thornton and Mollie Sugden; and various alumni of Hancock's show; plus a few key players associated both before and after with his variety shows. Hill was credited as co-writer on the first six shows, the remaining 13 written solely by Dave Freeman. Towards the end, he was being criticised for pushing the envelope way too much (a recurring critique that would frequently dog him for decades to come), with such episodes as "Mr. Apollo" being cited; after the third series, he abandoned the sitcom format altogether.

He also put his toe into radio. From 1964 to 1966, he did three series of a programme, Benny Hill Time, with Peter Vernon as his straight man (in which capacity he also served on TV from 1957-58 to 1961) and Patricia Hayes doing the main female parts. Some of the routines from these shows later turned up on record, cassette and CD. But it was also in 1964 that Benny returned to the comedy/variety format where he first made his name. It was also that year that the show as viewers around the world came to know it began to take shape, with every aspect of the show taped in advance of air date, thus making it possible for there to be more of Benny on the air than was previously the case. He also, for the only time in his career, made a contribution to the "Beeb's" annual Christmas Night with the Stars extravaganza, coming up with a 7-minute piece called "The Lonely One," about a "jubilant delinquent" named Willie Tredder; Hill played not only the said character, but also other characters such as his parents, a teacher, a warden and other authority figures (individual gags from this segment would turn up in later years). His next special, April 10, 1965, was notable in several ways: It marked the return of two key early players, straight man Jeremy Hawk and producer Kenneth Carter; and it was entered into the Rose d'Or (Montreux TV Festival; it lost, as did a compilation show made by Thames in 1970). During the next several months, he offered shows with impersonations of such musical figures as The Rolling Stones (whom he called "The Strolling Ones"), Peter & Gordon ("Pita & Cordon") and "P.J. Orbison" (the name being an amalgam of P.J. Proby and Roy Orbison); did takeoffs of such current films as The Knack (which he called "The Knock") and The Collector (his version was called "The Stamp Collector," and later redone at Thames), as well as of TV shows such as One Step Beyond, Z Cars and Opportunity Knocks (not the first or the last time he would do so in the latter case).

Benny as Richard Burton in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool" from "Humphrey Bumphrey: Continuity Announcer".
Broadcast: April 21, 1976.

His 1964-1966 shows for the BBC pointed to another characteristic that was emerging with Mr. Hill: a tendency to follow trends, rather than lead. In this case, it was all for the good, as his sketches that emphasized "biting social commentary" (such as "The Lonely One") pretty much fell in line with the mandate of the BBC's Director General from 1960 to 1969, Hugh Carleton Greene. Greene placed an emphasis on "edgy, socially relevant" programming in order to compete with ITV, with such shows as Till Death Us Do Part (which was the basis for the U.S. sitcom All in the Family), Steptoe and Son (on which the U.S. sitcom Sanford and Son was based), Z Cars, That Was the Week That Was (a.k.a. TW3) appearing during this period. (Greene's policy also got him into hot water with censor groups, and he would be forced to resign his position in April 1969.) As far as Hill was concerned, such a tendency to follow then-current fashions had a downside as well, given the controversy that dogged him following the introduction of Hill's Angels in 1980, as we'll get to a bit later. Benny occasionally skewered Greene's name during this period; his 1965 Opportunity Knocks spoof had him playing "Hughie Carleton Green," an amalgam of Greene's name and that of the actual host Hughie Green; and in a 1965 Fred Scuttle sketch where his guise was as a head of programming for the BBC, at one point when Jeremy Hawk asked him who made the programming decisions, Scuttle responded, without missing a beat, "Hugh and I" - a double-reference not only to Greene, but also an early 1960's comedy show starring Hugh Lloyd and Terry Scott. Such ribs would be a forerunner to the references to key executives at his future home, Thames Television.

But during this period, Benny saw his future more in films than in television. He had a small but very prominent role as a fire chief in the 1965 all-star extravaganza Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew From London To Paris In 25 Hours 11 Minutes (mostly known as Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines). He played "The Toymaker" in the 1968 movie version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; he struck a kind of kinship with the film's star, Dick Van Dyke, who was (among other things) a big fan of Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy fame. The next year, he played "Professor Simon Peach" in the caper film The Italian Job; the star of that flick, Michael Caine, would be impersonated by Hill in the Jan. 7, 1981 "Not a Lot of People Know That" monologue. (Also appearing, in a small supporting role, was Benny's future straight man Henry McGee.) While filming his part therein, he spoke in a broad Yorkshire accent, which in post-production had to be replaced with him looping his lines in a more conventional British accent; the experience of filming this picture effectively soured him on appearing in films which were written by others where he was to have no input. After that, he auditioned for a part in Blake Edwards' Darling Lili, but Edwards was none too impressed with Hill's attempts to try different accents and that was the end of that.

Benny as Roy Orbison in "Supersonic".
Broadcast: April 21, 1976.

During the 1960's, Hill also appeared in projects that included people who would later figure in some of his Thames shows, as well as working with some people behind-the-scenes who likewise factored in his association with the company where he became an international superstar. Back in 1961 he performed his "Pepys' Diary" on a pop programme which originated from ABC TV, Thank Your Lucky Stars; the producer was one Philip Jones who would go on to be Head of Light Entertainment for Thames in its first two decades of existence - and the namesake for the "Philip!" cries in many a blooper sketch Benny would do over the years. In 1964, he played Bottom in a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which also featured in other roles Eira Heath as Hippolyta - she was a chief supporting player in his first Thames series in 1969-70; and, as "Fairy," a teenaged dancer/ballerina named Kay Frazer who went on to appear in four of Hill's shows as produced and aired between 1970 and 1973. (The company that produced that version was Rediffusion London, which in 1968 was merged with ABC to form Thames Television.) On his Boxing Day 1967 special for ATV (of which more later), he worked for the first time with Nicholas Parsons, Rita Webb and Bettine Le Beau. In 1969 he filmed a short feature he wrote himself, The Waiters (released the next year), which featured David Battley, Jan Butlin and Pamela Cundell (the latter of whom was on one of his last BBC shows in 1968 and two of his 1972 Thames shows, the other two on his very first Thames show the year after; the second named also appearing in two other shows in 1970, plus his 1971 video for "Ernie" which played on Top of the Pops).

In 1967, in yet another attempt to pry him away from the BBC, Hill agreed to do some shows for ATV which would be produced in color in part for the U.S. market (but would air in Britain in B&W; while BBC2 went color in July of 1967, BBC1 and ITV didn't switch to color until Nov. 15, 1969). One of the shows was under his own name, aired in many areas (including London) on Dec. 26, 1967; the lead-in in some of these aforementioned areas was the debut episode of a programme, Do Not Adjust Your Set, which featured three future members of the Monty Python troupe: Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. Besides being the Hill debuts of the three involved (Parsons, Webb and Le Beau), it was the last time his onetime co-writer Dave Freeman appeared on the show, and even there as a supporting actor; it was also the last time he had on Dorita y Pepe who'd occasionally appeared on his shows since the 1950's. On the other hand, the popular folk group The Seekers appeared as another of the musical guests; its lead singer, Judith Durham, would make a solo appearance (with a Dixieland-style group, The Hottest Band in Town) on Hill's March 13, 1974 edition. The other two shows he hosted for ATV were episodes of an Anglo-American co-production, Spotlight, which aired in the summer of 1967 in the U.S. as a summer replacement for The Red Skelton Hour, and in Britain between late 1967 and mid-1968 once every three or so weeks alternating with Sunday Night at the Palladium. By all accounts, Hill hated doing these shows, especially as contractually he had no control whatsoever over the circumstances of production, as was typical of such ATV productions under Lew Grade. He especially hated having to duet on a song called "The Party's Over" with Canadian-born singer/songwriter Paul Anka, and in later years would make some light of it on his show (in the March 31, 1986 sketch "The Herd," Benny as the patriarch of a cattle ranch where he'd lost his entire herd, kept shouting "The party's over!" and the pianist {musical associate Ted Taylor} then played a few bars of the song in question, whereby Hill then slammed the piano door on Taylor's fingers). One of the two Spotlights that Mr. Hill hosted was the last time he worked with on-and-off straight man Jeremy Hawk. That programme was also notable for hosting appearances by popular singer Tom Jones which would lead to his own series, This Is Tom Jones! which would air in both the U.S. and England from 1969 to 1971.

Benny as Starch in "Husky & Starch".
Broadcast: March 23, 1977

After this experience which all but soured Hill on ATV forever, he returned to do a series of shows for the BBC which proved to be the last he would do for the Corporation. His last surviving complete show, April 20, 1968, featured a mammoth sketch, "Hollywood and the Stars: Partners," which spotlighted his impersonations of many screen partnerships such as The Marx Brothers, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger (as from On the Waterfront), and the piece-de-resistance, W.C. Fields and Mae West (which he would revisit on his Feb. 7, 1974 show, only with Cherri Gilham playing Miss West to Mr. Hill's Fields). His final set pointed the way to the future in many different ways. First, two of the shows aired on a Wednesday, with his very last for the BBC (Dec. 26, 1968) airing on Thursday, which would be among the chief days of the week many of his subsequent specials would air on (his previous BBC shows mostly aired on Saturdays). Second, it was with this group of shows that he first worked with the following actors that would comprise the main core cast that would carry him through the 1980's - Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright and Jenny Lee-Wright. Also credited for the first time was a man who served as Hill's stunt double for some 25 years, then known as Kedd Senton but later to be known as Ken (or Kenneth) Sedd.

After finishing work on The Waiters, Benny was having trouble peddling another short film project he had in mind, Eddie in August, about a young man who had a considerable amount of luck with the ladies - all bad. At this point, his agent, Richard Stone, rang Thames Television executive Brian Tesler (who'd produced Hill's first ATV special in 1957) to make a deal. Hill was then successfully lured to the then year-old company, the "carrot" being the chance to make this project; the "stick" was that he would be obligated to make a series of specials for them, thus ending his two-decades-long, on-off relationship with the BBC; one incentive in that respect was that he would get to produce his future shows in color (though, as noted above, BBC1 would also be "going color" at the same time). Benny, eager to get his project off the ground, made the plunge. The "Beeb" was livid, to say the least, and destroyed his last three shows for them in retaliation (with only the filmed inserts for his very last show still surviving today); indeed, it has been noted in some Hill books that Stone didn't even so much as give the Corporation a chance to counter-bid. Another key incentive for Benny to switch, that was most important from his point of view, was his being granted control over the circumstances of production, which had previously been enjoyed by two early American TV comedians, Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle; this was the first case of what would come to characterise Thames as an "artist-friendly" TV production company. But Hill wasn't the only top-flight comic talent Thames snared in 1969; they also made deals with Bernard Cribbins (for a sketch comedy series, Cribbins, which ran for two series, 1969 and 1970, and featured among the cast soon-to-be TBHS co-star Bob Todd) and Dickie Henderson (for a very short-lived sitcom, A Present for Dickie).

Benny as Husky in "Husky & Starch".
Broadcast: March 23, 1977

[These deals may have changed the course of British TV comedy, however indirectly, in another way. Another programme airing on Thames at the time (inherited from the Rediffusion London side) was Do Not Adjust Your Set, which had completed its second series at that point; the company expressed interest in a third series, but (probably in part as a consequence of these star signings, plus returning programmes such as Father, Dear Father) couldn't guarantee a studio for the show for another year to 18 months; especially, as some Hill biographies have noted, since studio time at their Teddington studio was booked on a first-come, first-served basis - and way in advance. At the same time, a BBC executive named Barry Took was readying plans for a show to be built around a lanky (6' 5") actor / writer / comedian named John Cleese, who with his writing partner Graham Chapman was contracted to the "Beeb"; three of the DNAYS players - Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - were invited to join this proposed show, and they accepted. Together with an American-born cartoonist / animator / illustrator, Terry Gilliam, they went on to form a programme that is today considered one of the most influential comedy shows in the history of the medium, Monty Python's Flying Circus.]

During the month of August, 1969, Benny filmed his auteur piece, which paired him with the following individuals who would be associated with some of his future shows: Nicole Shelby, a New Orleans-born and -raised actress who played the girl of his dreams, and would appear in three of his specials as aired between 1970 and 1973; George Roderick, a character actor who would be in another special in 1971; Michael Sharvell-Martin, then making his name as a comic support, who would appear in all of Hill's first series of specials for Thames; Connie Georges, an elderly bit-part character actress who appeared on and off through 1973; and a producer and director named John Robins who would have three tours of duty on the show from then until 1974. One of the uncredited players was a National Youth Theatre graduate named Yvonne Paul, who would be in four Hill shows aired between 1969 and 1972, and would later become an agent who represented several girls who appeared in subsequent years on TBHS. It also marked the beginning of musical director Ronnie Aldrich's association with Benny Hill, which lasted for all but three shows (in 1973-74, when Albert Elms filled in), to the very end, up to his Benny Hill's World Tour: New York special. It would be held off in airing for another year; when it finally ran on June 4, 1970, it received mixed reviews and a tepid audience response (this in contrast to what his regular shows were pulling even then); the relative failure of Eddie in August would ensure that all his future shows would be in the hour-long comedy/variety format.

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