Tony Hancock | |
|---|---|
 Hancock c. 1963 | |
| Born | Anthony John Hancock (1924-05-12)12 May 1924 Hall Green,Birmingham, England |
| Died | 25 June 1968(1968-06-25) (aged 44) Bellevue Hill,Sydney, Australia |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1942–1968 |
| Spouses | |
Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor.[1]
High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC seriesHancock's Half Hour, first broadcast on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actorSid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James, when it became known in early 1960,[2] disappointed many at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best-remembered work (includingThe Blood Donor andThe Radio Ham). After breaking with his scriptwritersRay Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career declined.
Across his career, Hancock twice won theBAFTA Award for Light Entertainment Artist in 1958 and 1960.[3] He was later nominated for theBAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his performance inThe Rebel (1961).[4]
Hancock was born in Southam Road,Hall Green,Birmingham,[5] but, from the age of three, he was brought up inBournemouth (then inHampshire), where his father, John Hancock, moved to in an effort to improve his health, and subsequently ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road. John Hancock also worked as a comedian and entertainer.[6]
Hancock's parents later bought the Durlston Court Hotel in Gervis Road and, after his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers[7] lived there with their mother and stepfather Robert Gordon Walker[8] He attended Summerbee Infants, Saugeen Preparatory School in Derby Road, Durlston Court Preparatory School, part of Durlston boarding school nearSwanage (the name of which his parents adopted for their hotel)[9] andBradfield College inReading, Berkshire,[10] but left school at the age of fourteen.[11]
In 1942, during theSecond World War, Hancock joined theRAF Regiment.[12] Following failed auditions for theEntertainments National Service Association (ENSA), he joined the Gang Shows, travelling around Europe entertaining troops. After the war, he joined theRalph ReaderGang Show touring production of "Wings".[13] He later worked in a double act with musician Derek Scott at theWindmill Theatre, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time. A favourable press review of his work at the Windmill was seen in July 1948. "But mention must made of a new young comedian…who with a piano partner, gives some brilliant thumbnail impressions of a “dud” concert party."[14] He took part in radio shows such asWorkers' Playtime[15] andVariety Bandbox.[16] In July 1949, he was praised for his work in the summer presentation of "Flotsam's Follies" at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Bognor Regis.[17] Christmas 1949 saw him in the part of "Buttons" in the Cinderellapantomime at the Royal Artillery, Woolwich.[18] In June 1950, he opened in the "Ocean Revue" at the Ocean, Clacton Pier[19] which ran for three months. At Christmas 1950, Hancock was in the "Red Riding Hood" pantomime at the Theatre Royal Nottingham playing the part of Jolly Jenkins, the Baron's page.[20]
In 1951–1952, for one series beginning on August 3, 1951,[21] Hancock was a cast member ofEducating Archie,[22] in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy. His appearance in this radio show brought him national recognition, and a catchphrase he used frequently in the show, "Flippin' kids!", became popular parlance. The same year, he began to make regular appearances onBBC Television'slight entertainment showKaleidoscope, and almost starred in his own series to be written byLarry Stephens, Hancock's best man at his first wedding.[23] In 1954, he was given his own eponymousBBC radio show,Hancock's Half Hour.
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Working with scripts fromRay Galton and Alan Simpson,Hancock's Half Hour lasted for seven years and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and, from 1956, ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name. The show starred Hancock as "AnthonyAloysiusSt John Hancock", living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" inEast Cheam. Most episodes portrayed his everyday life as a struggling comedian with aspirations toward straight acting. Some episodes, however, changed this to show him as being a successful actor and/or comedian, or occasionally as having a different career completely, such as a struggling (and incompetent) barrister.[24] Radio episodes were prone to more surreal storylines, which would have been impractical on television, such as Hancock buying a puppy that grows to be as tall as himself.
Sid James featured in both the radio and TV versions, while the radio version also included regularsBill Kerr,Kenneth Williams and, successively,Moira Lister,Andrée Melly[25] andHattie Jacques. The series rejected the variety format then dominant in British radio comedy and instead used a form drawn more from everyday life: thesituation comedy, with the humour coming from the characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Owing to a contractual wrangle with producerJack Hylton, Hancock had anITV series,The Tony Hancock Show, during this period, which ran in 1956–57.
During the run of his BBC radio and television series, Hancock became an enormous star in Britain. Unlike most other comedians at the time, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of "the lad himself" were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released on anLP record.
As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sid James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James's character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them. Hancock's highly-strung personality made the demands of live broadcasts a constant worry, with the result that, starting from the autumn 1959 series, all episodes of the series were recorded before transmission. Up until then, every British television comedy show had been performed live, owing to the technical limitations of the time. He was also the first performer to receive a £1,000 fee for his performances in a half-hour show.
Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act, and he told close associates in late 1959, just after the fifth television series had finished being recorded, that he would end his professional association with Sid James after a final series.[26] Hancock left others to tell James.[27] His last BBC series in 1961, retitled simplyHancock, was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: "The Blood Donor", in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains some famous lines, including "I don't mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint! That's very nearly an armful!"; in "The Radio Ham", Hancock plays anamateur radio enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking his position. Both of these programmes were re-recorded a few months later for a commercial 1961 LP, produced in the same manner as the radio episodes.
Returning home with his wife from recording "The Bowmans", an episode based around a parody ofThe Archers, Hancock was involved in a car accident and was thrown through the windscreen. He was not badly hurt, but suffered concussion and was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show due to be recorded. The result was that his performance depended on the use ofteleprompters, and he is seen looking away from other actors when delivering lines. From this time onwards, Hancock came to rely on teleprompters instead of learning scripts whenever he had career difficulties.
In early 1960, Hancock appeared on the BBC'sFace to Face, a half-hour in-depth interview programme conducted by former Labour MPJohn Freeman. Freeman asked Hancock many soul-searching questions about his life and work. Hancock, who deeply admired his interviewer, often appeared uncomfortable with the questions, but answered them frankly and honestly. Hancock had always been highly self-critical, and it is often argued that this interview heightened this tendency, contributing to his later difficulties. According to Roger, his brother, "It was the biggest mistake he ever made. I think it all started from that really. ... Self-analysis – that was his killer."[28]
Cited as evidence is his gradualostracism of those who contributed to his success, such as Sid James and his scriptwriters, Galton and Simpson. His reasoning was that, to refine his craft, he had to ditch catch-phrases and become realistic. He argued, for example, that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone likeKenneth Williams, who would appear with his well-known oily catchphrase "Good evening". Hancock believed the comedy suffered because people did not believe in the policeman, knowing it was just Williams doing a funny voice.[29]
Hancock starred in the filmThe Rebel (1961), in which he plays the role of an office worker-turned-artist who finds himself successful after a move toParis, but only as the result of mistaken identity. Although a success in Britain, the film was not well received in the United States: owing to a contemporary Americantelevision series of the same name, the film was retitledCall Me Genius and was not well received by American critics.[citation needed]
According to his agent at the time,Beryl Vertue his break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with her. Alan Simpson remembered that the break occurred during a telephone call and that only Beryl's position was discussed at the meeting. During the previous six months, the writers had developed – without payment and in consultation with the comedian – three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle. Worried that the projects were wrong for him, the first two had been abandoned incomplete; the third was written to completion at the writers' insistence, only for Hancock to reject it. It is believed that he had not read any of the screenplays. The result of the break was that he chose to separately develop something previously discussed, and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write aComedy Playhouse series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot forSteptoe and Son. That "something previously discussed" becameThe Punch and Judy Man, for which Hancock hired writerPhilip Oakes, who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay.[29]
InThe Punch and Judy Man (1963), Hancock plays a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life;Sylvia Syms plays his nagging social climber of a wife, andJohn Le Mesurier a sand sculptor. The extent to which the character played by Hancock had merged with his real personality is clear in the film, which owes much to his memories of his childhood in Bournemouth.[29]
Hancock moved toATV in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, disagreed over script ideas and the two men severed their professional (but not personal) relationship. The initial writer of Hancock's ATV series, Godfrey Harrison, had scripted the successfulGeorge Cole radio seriesA Life Of Bliss, and also Hancock's first regular television appearances onFools Rush In (a segment ofKaleidoscope) more than a decade earlier. Harrison had trouble meeting deadlines, so other writers were commissioned, includingTerry Nation.[30]
TheATV series was transmitted in early 1963, on the same evenings as the second series ofSteptoe and Son, written by Hancock's former writers, Galton and Simpson. Critical comparisons did not favour Hancock's series. Around 1965, Hancock made a series of 11 television adverts[31] for the Egg Marketing Board. Hancock starred in the adverts withPatricia Hayes as the character "Mrs Crevatte" in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts. Slightly earlier, in 1963, he had featured in a spoofHancock Report – hired byLord Beeching to promotehis plan to reduce railway mileage in newspapr advertisements and posters. A pamphlet featuring Hancock entitled The Truth About the Railways - The Hancock report was also published by the British Railways Board. Hancock reportedly wanted to be paid what Beeching was paid annually – £34,000; he was offered half that amount for his services.[32]
Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, including a 50-minute show for BBC2 from the Royal Festival Hall, which was poorly received. By then hisalcoholism was seriously affecting his performances. Two unsuccessful variety series forABC Weekend TV,The Blackpool Show (1966) andHancock's (1967), were his last work for British television. He tried a role in a Disney film –The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin – but was sacked after reportedly having trouble with the mock-Shakespearian dialogue. He collapsed with a liver attack on 1 January 1967 and was told he would die within three months if he continued drinking.[33]
In December 1967, while recovering from a broken rib from a drunken fall, he became ill withpneumonia.[34] His final television appearances were in Australia under a contract to make a 13-part series for theSeven Network. However, after arriving in Australia in March 1968, he completed only three programmes before his death and they remained unaired for nearly four years. These shows are the only existing television footage of him in colour, as all his previous shows had been made for black-and-white television.
In June 1950 Hancock married Cicely Romanis,[35] aLanvin model,[36] after a brief courtship.
Freddie Ross worked as his publicist from 1954 and became more involved in his life, eventually becoming his mistress. He divorced Cicely in 1965 and married Ross in December of that year.[37] This second marriage was short-lived. During these years Hancock was also involved withJoan Le Mesurier (née Malin), the new wife of actorJohn Le Mesurier, Hancock's best friend and a regular supporting character-actor from his television series. Joan was later to describe the relationship in her bookLady Don't Fall Backwards,[38] including the claim that her husband readily forgave the affair; he is quoted as saying that if it had been anyone else he would not have understood it, but with Tony Hancock it made sense. In July 1966 Freddie took an overdose but survived. Arriving inBlackpool to record an edition of his variety series, Hancock was met by pressmen asking about his wife's attemptedsuicide. Freddie was granted a decree nisi a few days before Hancock's own suicide.[39]
Cicely developed her own problems with alcohol and died from a fall in 1969, the year after the death of her former husband. Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry. Based inNew York City for many years, she founded the East Coast chapter of BAFTA, theBritish Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Hancock died by suicide byoverdose, inSydney, on 25 June 1968, aged 44.[40] He was found dead in hisBellevue Hill flat with an emptyvodka bottle and a scattering ofamobarbital tablets.[29][41]
In one of his suicide notes he wrote: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times."[42] His ashes were taken to England by satiristWillie Rushton[43] and were buried in St Dunstan's Church inCranford, London.
Asked byVan Morrison about his relationship with Hancock,Spike Milligan commented in 1989: "Very difficult man to get on with. He used to drink excessively. You felt sorry for him. He ended up on his own. I thought, he's got rid of everybody else, he's going to get rid of himself and he did."[44]
There is a sculpture by Bruce Williams (which was established in Hancock's honour in 1996) inOld Square,Corporation Street, Birmingham, a plaque on the house where he was born inHall Green, Birmingham, and a plaque on the wall of the hotel in Bournemouth where he spent some of his early life. There is also a plaque, placed by the Dead Comics Society, at 10 Grey Close,Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, where he lived in 1947 and 1948.[45] In 2014, anEnglish Heritageblue plaque was placed to commemorate Hancock at 20 Queen's Gate Place in South Kensington, London, where he lived between 1952 and 1958.[46]
In a 2002 poll, BBC radio listeners voted Hancock their favourite British comedian.[47] Commenting on this poll, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson observed that modern-day creations such asAlan Partridge andDavid Brent owed much of their success to mimicking dominant features of Tony Hancock's character. "The thing they've all got in common is self-delusion," they remarked, in a statement issued by the BBC. "They all think they're more intelligent than everyone else, more cultured, that people don't recognise their true greatness – self-delusion in every sense. And there's nothing people like better than failure."
Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes for BBC 7, commented: "Classic comedians such as Tony Hancock andthe Goons are obviously still firm favourites with BBC radio listeners. Age doesn't seem to matter – if it's funny, it's funny." Dan Peat of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society said of the poll: "It's fantastic news. If he was alive, he would have taken it one of two ways. He would probably have made some kind of dry crack, but in truth he would have been chuffed."[47]
The last eight or so years of Hancock's life were the subject of a BBC1 television film, calledHancock (1991), starringAlfred Molina. Another drama,Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! (BBC Four, 2006), sawMartin Trenaman play the role of Hancock withMichael Sheen as Williams. Hancock's affair with Joan Le Mesurier was also dramatised inHancock and Joan onBBC Four and transmitted in 2008 as part of the "Curse of Comedy" season. Hancock was portrayed byKen Stott and Joan byMaxine Peake.
MusicianPete Doherty is a fan of Hancock and named the first album by his bandthe LibertinesUp the Bracket after one of Hancock's catchphrases. He also wrote a song called "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" after the book at the centre of theHancock's Half Hour episode "The Missing Page".[48] Hancock is also referenced in the lyrics to the Libertines' 2015 song "You're My Waterloo".[49]
Paul Merton, in 1996, appeared in remakes of six of Galton and Simpson'sHancock scripts, which were not critically well received. In 2014, five of the radio instalments ofHancock's Half Hour that did not survive, chosen by Galton and Simpson, were re-staged for BBC Radio 4 under the umbrella titleThe Missing Hancocks, withKevin McNally taking the title role. Over subsequent years, all the remaining missing episodes were re-made, including two episodes, The Marriage Bureau and A Visit to Swansea, where the original broadcasts were later discovered and broadcast.
Playwright Roy Smiles' play about Tony Hancock,The Lad Himself, was staged at the Edinburgh Festival in 2013 with Mark Brailsford as Tony Hancock.
The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society was formed in 1976 and still attracts new members. It publishes a quarterly magazine, The Missing Page, holds events and is recognised as a source of information on Hancock. It has an extensive archive held in the safe keeping of De Montfort University, Leicester.
Episodes and anthologies from the radio series were released on vinylLP in the 1960s, as well as four re-makes of television scripts; an annual LP was issued of radio episodes (without the incidental music) between 1980 and 1984. Much of this material was also available oncassette in later years.
TheBBC issuedCDs of the surviving 74 radio episodes in six box sets, one per series, with the sixth box containing several out-of-series specials. This was followed by the release of one large box set containing all the others in a special presentation case; while it includes no extra material, the larger box alone (without any CDs) still fetches high prices on online marketplaces likeeBay, where Hancock memorabilia remains a thriving industry. There have also been numerousVHS releases of the BBC television series.[citation needed]
While five separateRegion 2 DVDs were previously issued, some of the surviving episodes were unavailable untilThe Tony Hancock BBC Collection (eight DVDs) appeared in 2007. Episodes of the radio series are often broadcast on the digital radio stationBBC Radio 4 Extra.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Orders Are Orders | Lt. Wilfred Cartroad | |
| 1961 | The Rebel | Anthony Hancock | US title:Call Me Genius |
| 1963 | The Punch and Judy Man | Wally Pinner | |
| 1965 | Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines | Harry Popperwell | |
| 1966 | The Wrong Box | Detective |
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)| International | |
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