Michael Bentine

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Michael Bentine bigraphy, stories - Comedians

Michael Bentine : biography

26 January 1922 – 26 November 1996

Michael James Bentin, also known as Michael Bentine, CBE (26 January 1922General Register Office for England and Wales – Birth Register for the March Quarter of 1922, Watford Registration District, Reference 3a 1478, listed as "Michael J. Bentin", mother’s maiden name as "Dawkins". – 26 November 1996General Register Office for England and Wales – Death Register for November 1996, Sutton Registration District, Reference C6B 296, listed as "Michael James Bentine" with a date of birth of 26 January 1922.) was a British comedian, comic actor and founding member of the Goons. He was Peruvian Briton as a result of his father’s nationality. In 1971, Bentine received the Order of Merit of Peru following his fund-raising work for the 1970 Great Peruvian Earthquake.

Family and health

He was married twice, remaining with his second wife, Clementina Stuart, a Royal Ballet dancer, for over fifty years. He had a child from his first marriage, Elaine, from whom he had a granddaughter, Marie Laurence, and three great-grandsons, William, Arthur and Nicholas. His children from his second marriage were better known by their family nicknames than their birth names: Gus (real name Stewart), Fusty (real name Marylla), Suki (real name Serena) and Peski (real name Richard). Two of his five children, his eldest daughters, died from cancer (breast cancer and lymphoma), while his elder son, Gus, was killed when a Piper PA-18 (Super Cub, registration G-AYPN) crashed into a hillside at Ditcham Park Woods near Petersfield, Hampshire, on 28 August 1971. His body, together with that of the pilot and the aircraft, was found on 31 October 1971. Bentine’s subsequent investigation into regulations governing private airfields resulted in his writing a report for the Special Branch of the British police into the use of personal aircraft in smuggling operations. He fictionalised much of the material in his novel Lords of the Levels.

When his son Richard’s first boy Elliot was born, he tried to give him an MG 08 machine gun, which his daughter-in-law refused to accept. When Richard’s second son Harry was born, Michael bought him a train set.

From 1975 until his death in 1996, he and his wife spent their winters at a second home in Palm Springs, California, USA.

Shortly before his death from prostate cancer at the age of 74, he was visited in hospital in England by the Prince of Wales, who was a close personal friend, as well as a devoted fan of the Goons.

Films

  • Rentadick (1972)
  • Bachelor of Arts (1971)
  • The Sandwich Man (1966)
  • We Joined the Navy (1962)
  • The Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit (1961)
  • I Only Arsked! (1958)
  • Raising a Riot (1955)
  • John and Julie (1955)
  • Forces’ Sweetheart (1953)
  • Down Among the Z Men aka The Goon Movie (1952)
  • Cookery Nook (1951)

Programmes

Some of the programmes Bentine appeared in were:

  • The Great Bong (1993)
  • The Sky At Night (1980)
  • The Sky At Night (1977)
  • Bentine (1975)
  • Michael Bentine’s Potty Time (1973–80)
  • The Golden Silents (1969-70)
  • All Square (1966)
  • It’s a Square World (1960–64)
  • Round the Bend in Thirty Minutes (1959)
  • After Hours (1958–59)
  • Yes, It’s the Cathode-Ray Tube Show! (1957)
  • The Bumblies (1954)
  • Goonreel (1952)
  • The Goon Show (1950–52)

Comedy career

After the war he decided to become a comedian and worked in the Windmill Theatre where he met Harry Secombe. He specialised in off-the-wall humour, often involving cartoons and other types of animation. His acts included giving lectures in an invented language called Slobodian, "Imaginative Young Man with a Walking Stick" and "The Chairback", with a broken chairback having a number of uses from comb to machine gun and taking on a demonical life of its own. Peter Sellers told him this was the inspiration for the prosthetic arm routine in Dr Strangelove. This act led to his engagement by Val Parnell to appear in the Starlight Roof revues starring Vic Oliver, where he met and married his second wife Clementina, with whom he had four children. Also on the bill were Fred Emney and a young Julie Andrews.