![]() The late Alan Simpson is left with Ray Galton right. Actress June Whitfield with Hancock’s script-writers Galton and Simpson. It was telling perhaps that those who knew him best, even those who had seen him wretched, drunk, bewildered and angry, hung onto their memories of the funny, gentle, vulnerable Tony Hancock that they first knew. During the years I was arts and entertainments editor on the local daily paper I had the privilege of meeting a number of his friends at various celebrations of his extraordinary comic legacy. Tony Hancock was born in Birmingham but grew up and launched his early career in Bournemouth. ![]() they watched helplessly as the old Tony was gradually eclipsed by a morose boozer. Yet those who knew the comedian sober said he was a thoughtful man – gentle, reflective and caring. I thought, he’s got rid of everybody else, he’s going to get rid of himself and he did.” Spike Milligan, who for a time shared an office with Galton and Simpson, perhaps summed it up best when, years later, he said of Hancock: “Very difficult man to get on with. Everyone agreed there was a sort of inevitability about it. Family, friends and colleagues were shocked but not surprised by news of his death. There was a note that said: “Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times”. An empty vodka bottle and a scattering of barbiturates lay at his side. In desperation he retreated to his rented flat and shut the door. He tried to remain sober but was frightened and in turmoil. They also told him that he’d be fired if took another drink. He was boozing hard and TV bosses were forced to send him to a drying out clinic. Professionally and personally he was all washed up and had little hope of reversing the situation.ĭuring that spring and early summer of 2008 in Australia they managed to get a handful of programmes in the can but Hancock’s new start was already looking decidedly shambolic. Soon after reaching Australia, ostensibly to record a new series of career-reviving shows, he was beginning to face the bitter truth. ![]() Worse still he sacked Galton and Simpson believing that he would do better writing his own material. In Hancock’s head there could be only be one star. ![]() He dropped long-standing support-star Sid James fearing that their winning partnership was making them look like a double-act. He hit the bottle and slowly as the booze robbed him of his talent he became more and more paranoid. Dogged by depression and haunted by self-doubt, the more successful he became the more terrified he was of failure. Sadly the real-life Hancock, although desperate for success, was unable to cope with his fame. Stop any dozen people in the street and the chances are they could tell you his fictional address – 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam – without a second thought. They laughed with him and they laughed at him. The inspired sit-com Hancock’s Half Hour ran for 100 episodes on radio and 76 on TV before spawning a one-man spin-off called simply Hancock.īased on the life and times of a pompous, misanthropic, down-at-heel suburbanite, the character of Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock caught to perfection the prevailing mood of post war austerity. It was a tragic and lonely end, thousands of miles from home, for a man who just a handful of years earlier had been a huge TV and radio star, a household name loved by millions.ĭuring the 1950s and early 1960s Tony Hancock’s extraordinary comic-timing paired with brilliant scripts by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson made him the BBC’s most popular entertainer. Lonely and depressed, he ended his life with an overdose of drink and drugs in a rented flat in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Fifty years ago this week one of Britain’s greatest comedians, Tony Hancock, committed suicide. ![]()
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