Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne Hill (January 21, 1924 – April 20, 1992), known professionally as Benny Hill, was an English comedian and actor, born in Southampton. He left school at 15 and worked as a milkman, bridge operator, and driver before serving with the Royal Engineers during the Second World War, after which he turned to performing in working-men's clubs and on radio.

Hill broke through on British television with The Benny Hill Show, first broadcast by the BBC in 1955 and later by Thames Television from 1969 to 1989. The show combined sketch comedy, song parodies, and silent-film-style chase sequences, and made his face and the closing theme Yakety Sax familiar in dozens of countries when the Thames episodes were exported.

He also recorded comic songs, including Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West), which reached number one on the U.K. singles chart at the end of 1971. He appeared in films such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the toymaker.

Hill never married and lived modestly in flats in Teddington and Southampton. He died of coronary thrombosis at his home in Teddington in April 1992.

The name Benny is most often a pet form of Benjamin, from the Hebrew Binyamin meaning son of the right hand or, by some readings, son of the south. Hill himself adopted the name Benny in tribute to American comedian Jack Benny.