Southampton's Benny Hill made us laugh for over forty years, we remember the comedian and explore his connections to the city for which he called home
Benny Hill (1924-92) was born Alfred Hawthorne Hill on January 21, 1924, in Southampton, and was one of three to Alfred Hill Snr. (1893-1972), who was later manager of a surgical appliance shop in Canal Walk, and Helen Hill, née Cave (1894-1976).
The family lived on Bridge Road (today’s Bernard Street) when Benny was born but quickly moved to Westrow Gardens in Banister’s Park.
Both his father and grandfather (some sources say uncle) had performed as circus clowns, so entertaining and being silly ran in the family.
The familial love of live shows saw the Hills out every Wednesday at either the Palace Theatre on Above Bar Street or the Hippodrome on Ogle Road.
Educated at Shirley Primary and Taunton’s School in the city, during which time he joined a local Southampton concert party, Hill went on to have a series of jobs, including at Woolworths in Southampton, being a milkman (funnily enough) with Hann & Son Dairy in Eastleigh, but also as a stage manager with a touring revue.
It was whilst working as a milkman that he moved out of the family home, taking lodgings in the Nook in Eastleigh, where he also joined a local musical group.
He’d moved to London by 1941 to pursue his entertainment career but was called up in 1942 and served in the Army during WW2 including as a truck driver, mechanic and searchlight operator and was in Normandy a few months after D-Day.
Alfred was determined though to make a career in show business and upon his return from the war, he adopted the moniker Benny in homage to Jack Benny, his favourite comedian.
He made his radio debut in 1947, a time when radio was the king of home entertainment. Impressions and comic timing enabled him to break into TV, firstly with the revue, Here’s Mud in Your Eye, then with Hi There! (1949). He was on his way to becoming the first British comedy star made famous by television.
In April 1951 Hill was a member of the ensemble of Sky High, a touring revue, which opened for a week at the Sunderland Empire.
The next morning there was lukewarm praise for one of the stars, Reg Varney, who would star in TV sitcom On The Buses in the future, but there was no mention whatsoever of the efforts of his co-star, Benny Hill.
His solo turn had gone down okay with southern audiences but struggled to get laughs the previous week in Hull, and suffered a disaster in Sunderland, a.k.a. the slow handclap.
It was a confidence sapping experience for the young 20s comic and although he was permitted to see out the week, his solo spot was history; he was reduced to being Varney’s ‘feed’ (straight man), but their double act was brief.
Despite this rocky start, fast forward to 1955 and it’s The Benny Hill Show for which the eponymous star is best remembered.
In our increasingly politically correct world, it’s a throwback to a more irreverent time when pretty much anything went and did.
Viewing some of those clips today serves to bring home what a different time that was; Hill was a person of that time who tapped into what people found amusing.
It was all slapstick, a bit of risqué burlesque, mime, parody, and the anticipated double entendre of which Hill was a master, with a combination of live comedy and pre-filmed bits.
The show continued until May 1991, and was broadcast in some 140 countries. Hill was supported by a line-up of regular stalwarts including Henry McGee, Nicholas Parsons, Bob Todd and Helen Horton.
It was among the most-watched TV programmes with a viewing audience of over 21 million in 1971.
In the same year his humorous song Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) claimed the top spot in the UK Singles Chart at Christmas, earning him an Ivor Novello.
There were also other Top 20 appearances, and he featured in a Genesis music video in 1986, or rather Fred Scuttle did.
He was sufficiently bankable to make cameo appearances in movies including his debut in Who Done It? (1956), followed by Light Up the Sky! (1960), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and The Italian Job (1969) whilst his Benny Hill Show made it on to US TV in 1979 making him one of the biggest stars on both sides of the pond.
Interestingly, Hill’s story is sufficiently noteworthy for him to pop up not once but twice in an academic history book devoted to the immediate post-war era that I have on my shelves. Perhaps we need to look at his career a little more seriously; he won a BAFTA TV award for Best Writer after all.
In later years, although he was famous and wealthy, he still lived a fairly unassuming life in the family home which was still in Westrow Gardens in Southampton.
He was often seen around the city doing ‘normal’ things like getting the shopping, catching a cab or picking up groceries. Despite his wealth he seems to have preferred an ordinary life and appears to have been quite parsimonious, living in a modest abode, never owning a car, and refusing to repair a leaky roof as it would have cost too much (his mother’s roof, not his). He never married.
Benny Hill died on April 20, 1992, in Teddington, aged 68, his estate worth an estimated £10 million.
He was laid to rest in his home city, in the Hollybrook Cemetery. His grave proclaims him as: ‘Southampton’s Benny Hill – comedian, son, brother, friend, our ‘boy eternal’, God bless’.
Benny Hill’s verdict on the industry he’d done so well from was not that complimentary but had a ring of truth about it: ‘That’s what show business is, sincere insincerity’. His part in it all was perhaps best summed up by one producer though: ‘I guess there’s only one Benny Hill’. Indeed.
BENNY HILL TIMELINE
1924 – Birth of Alfred Hawthorne Hill in Southampton (January 21).
1942 – Called up for Army service during WW2.
1947 – Makes his radio debut with his first TV appearance not far behind.
1951 – Hill’s solo turn in the touring revue ‘Sky High’ bombs as he heads further north.
1955 – The Benny Hill Show airs for the first time in its initial manifestation.
1956 – Makes the first of several cameo appearances in films, starting with Who Done It?
1971 – Ernie (the Fastest Milkman in the West) achieves an unlikely Number One spot.
1979 – The Benny Hill Show makes it on to American TV as Hill becomes a star there too.
1992 – Death of Benny Hill in Teddington (April 20) aged 68.
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