Tony Hancock: The Definitive Biography
Tony Hancock was regarded as the best radio and television comic of his era. A man whose star burned brightly in the eyes and ears of millions before his untimely death. This is the first fully authorised account of his life.Tony Hancock was one of post-war Britain’s most popular comedians – his radio show ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ would clear the streets as whole families tuned in to listen.His peerless timing and subtle changes in intonation marked Hancock out as a comic genius. His character ‘Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock’ was an amplification of his own persona, a pompous prat whose dreams of success are constantly thwarted. The original British loser that we recognise in Victor Meldrew and Alan Partridge. Wonderfully supported by a cast including Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams, and working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock became a huge star. The show was commisioned for TV, showcasing his talent for hilarious facial expression, and he became the first British comedian to earn a thousand pounds a week.Behind Tony Hancock’s success however hid the self-destructive behaviour that plagued him all his life. Prone to self-doubt, and wanting to be the star of his own show, he got rid of James, and finally dismissed Galton and Simpson who had created the platform for his success.His private life was wracked by his ever increasing alcoholism and bouts of depression, and his relationships shattered by his capacity for violence. His ratings fell and, feeling washed up and alone after divorcing his second wife, he committed suicide in an Australian hotel room in 1968.Now, forty years after his death John Fisher explores the turbulent life of a man regarded by his peers as one of the greatest British comics to have ever lived.
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TONY HANCOCK
The Definitive Biography
John Fisher
For Sue,
with love,
for always being there
CONTENTS
Sid James used to claim that he learned his lines during the television commercials. That was always a sore point with me, a plodder who takes about three hours to learn one page. All the time I sweated over my own script, going through what I call my hair shirt routine, I imagined Sid looking up from a cornflakes advertisement and saying, ‘Hmm … yes, I’ve got that,’ and I could have killed him.
I shall always remember the day I went to Pinewood to watch him playing a part in Chaplin’s picture A King in New York. He had a foolscap page and a half of dialogue to learn. He handed it to me and said, ‘Give us a run through, will you?’ I rehearsed it with him a couple of times and by then he was word perfect.
I was lucky to get on the set at all. Chaplin liked to work on his film behind locked doors and it was a long time before his production assistant would admit me into the fortress. All I wanted to do was to watch a genius at work, and seeing A King in New York come to life under that man’s magic touch was an unforgettable experience. His vitality was astounding. He seemed to be everywhere at once, directing a scene here, playing in one there, and never sitting down for a moment.
Now there is a man who knew all along exactly where he wanted to go and got there. Without aspiring to be another Chaplin, I hope I shall be able to look back on my career and say the same.
Tony Hancock, 1962
‘For a comedian to leave behind that kind of echo of remembered laughter – it is hard to think of his life as a complete tragedy.’ Denis Norden
He would have relished the fact that by Coronation Year his name had been immortalised in a dirty joke. As a performer he renounced smut at an early age, but years later my school playground rallied to the cheeky charade of which his idol, Max Miller, would have been proud. Four deft pats on their respective body parts posed the question – ‘Who’s this?’ – and said it all. ‘Toe – knee – han’ – cock!’ The playground, then as now, knew no taboos. We all performed it out of bravado. And it is reassuring to learn that while he never allowed his professional funny side to stray into the double entendre terrain of seaside comic postcards colonised by the great Maxie himself, nevertheless from an early age ‘the lad himself’ would have been at the harmless vanguard of such fun.
I had the edge over the other members of my peer group in that I had seen our eponymous hero with my own two eyes. Hancock first became crystallised in the national consciousness by the radio comedy series, Educating Archie, starring ventriloquist Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews. No sooner had the programme taken wing than Brough was touring the variety theatres with a stage show capitalising on its success. In November 1951 the pair arrived to spend a week at my local theatre, the Gaumont in Southampton. To a small child fast approaching seven years of age Archie was a real live boy, as genuine as any who would share that playground joke a year or so later. I prevailed upon my parents to take me to see my idol in the ‘flesh’. The parade of acts that preceded Brough’s ventriloquial turn stays etched in my memory to this day: Ossie Noble, a clown of antic finesse, able to fling an unruly deckchair across the stage in such a way that it stopped just short of the wings in perfect sitting position; Edward Victor, a hand shadow artist who secured the biggest applause of the evening with his pièce de résistance, a silhouette of Winston Churchill puffing at his cigar; Ronald Chesney, a virtuoso harmonica player with the uncanny knack of making his instrument talk; and a young girl singer hitting the high notes with, I now realise, a vocal control unusual for her years, Julie Andrews. The last two were regular members of the radio cast, as was the comedian on the bill, Tony Hancock.
It seems appropriate now that, on the show that introduced me to the delights and serendipity of variety, he should be there. Outside of the pantomime, he was the first comedian I saw perform on a theatre stage, and he set the standard thereafter. To those whose memory of Hancock is geared to his later Hancock’s Half Hour success, this performance would have been a total surprise, a triumph of visual athleticism as he threw himself into a series of impersonations of the sportsmen who featured in the opening titles of the
