Tony Hancock


Anthony John Hancock was an English comedian and actor.
High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock'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 actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James, when it became known in early 1960, disappointed many at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best-remembered work. After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career declined.
Across his career, Hancock twice won the BAFTA Award for Light Entertainment Artist in 1958 and 1960. He was later nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his performance in The Rebel.

Early life and career

Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, the second of three sons.
His father, Jack, worked for a shipping firm while his mother, Lily, was the daughter of a printer who served 21 years as a director of Birmingham City Football Club.

In April 1927, in an effort to improve his health, Jack moved to Bournemouth with his family. There they bought the Mayo Hygienic Laundry in Winton but the next year they moved to the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road of which Jack had become the licensee.
In 1933, Hancock's parents bought Swanmore Villa and Lodge in Gervis Road, which they renamed to the Durlston Court Hotel, after Durlston Court Preparatory School, now called the Celebrity Hotel. After his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers lived there with their mother and stepfather Robert Gordon Walker
The young Anthony was sent to board at Durlston Court School, Swanage, from 1936. He learned typing and shorthand at Bournemouth Municipal College at the Lansdowne and later applied to be a newspaper reporter in Birmingham.

Hancock attended Summerbee Infants, Saugeen Preparatory School in Derby Road, Durlston Court Preparatory School, part of Durlston boarding school near Swanage and Bradfield College in Reading, Berkshire, but left school at the age of fourteen.
He made his stage debut in the hall of the Church of the Sacred Heart on Richmond Hill in 1940, billed as "Anthony Hancock - The Confidential Comic".
In 1940, Hancock made his first professional appearance at The Labour Halls, in Avon Road, Springbourne, in Bournemouth.
During the war, Hancock was billeted to the Hotel Metropole in Holdenhurst Road while attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force photographic interpretation unit.

In 1942, during the Second World War, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment. Following failed auditions for the Entertainments National Service Association, he joined the Gang Shows, travelling around Europe entertaining troops. After the war, he joined the Ralph Reader Gang Show touring production of "Wings". He later worked in a double act with musician Derek Scott at the Windmill 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." He took part in radio shows such as Workers' Playtime and Variety Bandbox. In July 1949, he was praised for his work in the summer presentation of "Flotsam's Follies" at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Bognor Regis. Christmas 1949 saw him in the part of "Buttons" in the Cinderella pantomime at the Royal Artillery, Woolwich. In June 1950, he opened in the "Ocean Revue" at the Ocean, Clacton Pier which ran for three months. In December 1950, Hancock was in the "Red Riding Hood" pantomime at the Theatre Royal Nottingham playing the part of Jolly Jenkins, the Baron's page.
In 1951–1952, for one series beginning on August 3, 1951, Hancock was a cast member of Educating Archie, in which he mainly played the tutor 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 on BBC Television's light entertainment show Kaleidoscope, and almost starred in his own series to be written by Larry Stephens, Hancock's best man at his first wedding. In 1954, he was given his own eponymous BBC radio show, Hancock's Half Hour.

Peak years

Working with scripts from Ray 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 "Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock", living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" in East 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 barrister. Radio episodes were prone to more surreal storylines, which would have been impractical on television, such as in 'The Pet Dog',, in which 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 regulars Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and, successively, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly and Hattie Jacques. The series rejected the variety format then dominant in British radio comedy and instead used a form drawn more from everyday life: the situation comedy, with the humour coming from the characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Owing to a contractual wrangle with producer Jack Hylton, Hancock had an ITV 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 an LP 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 most real 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. Hancock left others to tell James. His last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply Hancock, 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 an amateur 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 of The 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 of teleprompters, 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.

Introspection

In early 1960, Hancock appeared on the BBC's Face to Face, a half-hour in-depth interview programme conducted by former Labour MP John 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."
Cited as evidence is his gradual ostracism 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 like Kenneth 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.