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Due to popular demand, we now present a tribute to that little man that Benny was always slapping on the back of the head, little Jackie Wright. William Brown has provided an excellent tribute to one of Benny's key members of the series. Thanks, William!
Jackie Wright as "Filbert" in "Big Poppa"
Broadcast: March 25, 1981
As much a fixture of The Benny Hill Show as Hill himself, his supporting core of Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Nicholas Parsons et al, and the Hill's Angels, was a 4' 11" bald Irishman named Jackie Wright. With his ravaged face (and pronounced - and sometimes unintelligible - Ulster-accented voice), and a shiny bald pate that regularly made him a target of head slappings from Benny and various other sundry individuals, Jackie became a legend on a par with the other cast members, with such routines as "Jackie Wright's Holiday" (in which, to save £1 on a holiday to a foreign country, he ends up on a trip to hell) and the parody of the game show Name That Tune (with Jackie as a contestant given the short shrift by Benny's smarmy game-show host, and ending up with the girl who "won") passing into legend.
Jackie Wright as Prefect in "Superteech"
Broadcast: Jan. 5, 1983.
John (Jackie) Wright was born in 1905 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of twelve children. The details of his early life are sketchy, but this much is known: Early on, he was a car-body builder in the auto manufacturing trade, and at one point was in America, upholstering Cadillacs; also spending his spare time in speakeasies playing trombone (as he would do in the March 23, 1977 "At the Streaker's Ball" number) and tap dancing. When the Depression hit, he was so poverty-stricken that he pawned his trombone and made his way back to Ireland where for the next few decades he travelled the country as a music-hall trombonist and supporting comic; during World War II he played trombone in the Belfast Home Guard.
Jackie Wright in "Yeild To The Dawn"
Broadcast: April 25, 1979.
It was in the 1930's that he became bald, which he first noticed whilst working in Canada; for a time he billed himself as "Jackie Wright, The Bald Bombshell." But it wasn't until the 1960's that he first appeared on television, initially as an extra on such shows as Z Cars. It was from his appearances on these programmes that he first came to the attention of Benny Hill, who picked his supporting players as much on the basis of their "visual value" as on their comedic skills and their ability to work with him. Mr. Wright appeared in the last three editions of TBHS to air on the BBC in 1968; on which McGee, Todd and Jenny Lee-Wright also débuted with Mr. Hill. On that final BBC series, plus Hill's first Thames series, he was billed as John Wright; but because of a few character actors already named John Wright (including one, in Britain, named John C. Wright), the "little bald guy" had his billing changed, effective with Mr. Hill's Oct. 28, 1970 special, to the more recognisable Jack Wright - although Benny would always call him "Little Jackie."
Jackie Wright in "Name That Tune?"
Broadcast: April 16, 1980.
Initially a recipient of constant - and consistent - head-tappings in silent sketches (the "Lower Tidmarsh Hospital Service" from Mr. Hill's first Thames special of Nov. 19, 1969, for example; or the first "Hotel Splendide" sketch from Feb. 4, 1970), within a few years Mr. Wright was given speaking parts on the show, with his Irish brogue becoming every bit as prominent as the head-slappings. One of the earliest showcases for Jackie in this regard was the March 29, 1973 "Baby Lover" song in the "Dalton Abbott Railway Choir" sketch, with Benny as one of the most obnoxious, front-and-center background singers in history. And not long after that, Mr. Wright would also be handling impersonations, which provided a marked contrast to Mr. Hill's. Unlike Benny who would bury himself in whoever he was playing, Jackie always sounded like Jackie regardless of who he was "impersonating" (football [soccer] legend Georgie Best, Antonio Fargas' "Huggy Bear" character from Starsky & Hutch, singer/songwriter Lynsey De Paul, Peter Falk's "Lt. Columbo," Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, or anybody from the U.S., just as a few examples). In addition, in one memorable moment on the March 23, 1977 show, the "Somethin' 'Bout You Baby I Like" section of the "Girls, Girls, Girls" sketch, was a reversal of the usual Hill show formula when Jackie repeatedly slapped Benny on the head! After the Dec. 17, 1975 episode, he would be moved up in casting order, not being billed lower than third in the supporting cast (with the exception of March 23, 1977 when he was credited fourth behind McGee, Rita Webb and guest Dilys Watling) for the rest of his run with the show.
Jackie Wright as Charles Aznavour from the
"Another Host of Your Favourite Stars" sketch.
Broadcast: Dec. 17, 1975.
But TBHS was by no means Mr. Wright's sole credit; during his run with the show he also appeared in the short-lived Frankie Howerd sitcom Whoops Baghdad, as well as with comedians Dick Emery and Jim Davidson; in addition, in 1975 he played an "old man" in a film called Three for All, which may explain his absence from the Sept. 24, 1975 show on which Don Estelle filled in for him (the episode was produced in March of that year). In 1978 he made a first attempt at retirement, skipping the Dec. 26, 1978 edition (on which Johnny Vyvyan, who'd appeared with Hill a few times in the 1950's and 1960's, subbed for him); but within a few months he was so bored that he asked to return and was welcomed back with the proverbial open arms. (His initial attempt at retirement would explain his absence from the filmed segments of the two 1979 shows on which he appeared in the studio segments.)
Jackie Wright as Lt. Columbo, from the
"Murder on the Oregon Express" skech.
Broadcast: March 24, 1976.
Wright was a teetotaller, as well as being an inveterate eater, tea drinker and chain-smoker (he would often show up for filming or taping with a cigarette in one hand and a packet of crisps in the other; yet he didn't seem to put on any weight, unlike Hill). As of the early 1980's, Jackie lived in a bedsitter in London for half of the year when TBHS was being produced, and the other half of the year lived in his native Belfast with his sister Lily. And after Hill's show made it into the United States in 1979, Wright became an international superstar on a par with Hill himself, to such an extent that a Jackie Wright fan club sprung up in the States, and he was receiving offers to star in his own TV show. He shared a few traits with Hill: Both never married, and they each had an apparent indifference to money, with a drawer of uncashed royalty checks for U.S. repeats sent to Jackie discovered by his sister.
Jackie Wright as Fidel Castro, from the "Bionic Baby" skech.
Broadcast: Jan. 26, 1977.
But inevitably, time caught up with little Jackie. The 1983 series was the last in which he appeared full-time. He did filmed sketches for the 1984 series and a few quickies for the first edition of same, but would be unable to participate any further due to declining health, dating back to a stomach operation after which he started feeling "poorly" (per the British vernacular); not long afterwards, he fell and broke a leg and some ribs, and not long after that, he fell and broke his hip while walking down the street; he would be in racking pain thereafter. Leftover footage dating back to filming of the 1982 series with Wright in it would be aired as late as the 1985 series, so that royalty checks would still be coming his way; but an era irrevocably came to an end with his illness-induced retirement. A few others came afterwards (such as Len Keyes, Sydney Arnold and ex-acrobat Johnny Hutch), but none with the same effects or appeal.
Jackie Wright as "Huggy Bear" from
the "Husky and Starch" sketch.
Broadcast: March 23, 1977.
Jackie Wright died after a long illness in a Belfast hospital in January of 1989 at age 83. At the time of his death, Benny Hill remarked, "He was a lovely little fella . . . I'm saddened beyond words."
So were millions of fans around the world.