Benny Hill was born on January 21, 1925, in Southampton, England. His real name was Alfred Hawthorn Hill. Hill held jobs as a milkman and drummer before moving to London at the age of 16. At 16, Hill landed his first gig as a comic, headlining a troupe of 12 lovely young ladies. He made his satge debut in 1941in the production of Stars in Battledress. Taking his stage name from Jack Benny, Hill later followed the traditional route of many comedians by performing in revues at music halls and men's clubs.
Hill began hosting a handful of variety programs for the British Broadcasting Company in the early 1950s. In 1956, he made his cinematic debut in Who Done It?, a rather disappointing comedy that featured him in the role of a zany private detective.His popularity growing thanks to a series of antic television commercials, Hill began performing regularly on the BBC-TV network, taking time out for the occasional film part in such international productions as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1969). Hill moved to Thames Television in 1969, where he agreed to turn out only five or six specials per year. It was from these specials that the weekly, half-hour syndicated The Benny Hill Show was gleaned.
Throughout the 1970s, Hill continued to work on the highly rated The Benny Hill Show. In 1979, many of these hour-long comedy specials were edited to half-hour segments and introduced to American television audiences. Although Hill's lascivious antics were thought to be vulgar and sexist by many, the show immediately gained an international following and remained in network syndication until the late 1980s.
The show was pulled down in 1989 by the British TV Mafia. An utter extrovert on camera, Benny Hill was exceedingly private in real life, so much so that he tried to avoid public places as much as possible, even though one of his great passions in life was travelling from country to country.
Suffering a sudden heart attack, Benny Hill died in April 20 of 1992, alone in his apartment; he was 67 years old.
