Benny Hill Biography and Filmography

[ << Back ]

Naked Photos of Benny Hill are available at MaleStars.com. They currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips, Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars.

Actresses who appeared with Benny Hill on screen:

Jane Leeves
Barbara Windsor
Lee Meredith
Valerie Leon
Zena Marshall
Corrine Russel

Benny Hill
Birthday: January 21, 1924
Birth Place: Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK (some sources say 1925)
Height: 5' 1"

Below is a complete filmography (list of movies he's appeared in) for Benny Hill. If you have any corrections or additions, please email us at corrections@actorsofhollywood.com. We'd also be interested in any trivia or other information you have.

Biography

From boyhood, British entertainer Benny Hill dreamed of being the principal comedian in a stage review, but the immediacies of eating interfered, so he took such jobs as milkman, bridge operator and drummer. At 16, Hill landed his first gig as a comic, headlining a troupe of 12 lovely young ladies. He played the provinces for years, somehow always missing out on his target arena of London. Hill learned his distinctive down-to-earth style from watching American comedians like Danny Thomas and Danny Kaye, performers who slid into the comic punch line rather than hammering it to death like most British musical hall comics. As his jobs increased in stature, Benny tried briefly to be a film star, but his first movie Who Done It? (1956) turned out to be a "who saw it?" 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). Thanks to the loose British-TV standards in regards to feminine nudity and ribald humor, Hill maintained his following with a potpourri of smirky, suggestive jokes and comic sketches - always redeemed by the performance's bad-little-boy ingenuousness. Tired of the weekly grind, 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. This package was introduced on Los Angeles TV in early 1979, scored an instantaneous hit, and soon became one of the most sought-after syndicated properties in America. While prudes and bluenoses ranted, raved and tore their hair, Benny Hill scampered about pinching female bottoms and leering at the remaining portions of the anatomy on a Monday-through-Friday basis in most markets. Hill's fame was international by the early '80s, but unlike other major comics he preferred to confine his work to the TV studio, disdaining personal appearances and nightclubs. 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. He also avoided any long term romantic relationships, at least until late in his life. Benny Hill remained a number-one syndicated TV attraction into the late '80s, at which time his series was transferred to cable TV, where it remains as of this writing as a fixture of the Comedy Network. Suffering a sudden heart attack, Benny Hill died in April of 1992 - one day after the death of another highly-regarded "racy" British comedian, Frankie Howerd, whose own TV series was distributed in America on the coattails of Benny Hill's success.

Movie Credits

Benny Hill: The Hill's Angels Years (2006)

Benny Hill's World Tour: New York! (1991)

The Crazy World of Benny Hill (1988)

Video Spotlight (1985)

The Best of the Benny Hill Show: Vol. 1 (1981)

Butch Cafferty and the Fundance Kid (1980)

The Police Raid in Waterloo Station (1979)

Friday Night Fever (1978)

The South Blank Show (1978)

Benny Hill Down Under (1977)

The Waiters (1971)

Eddie in August (1970)

The Italian Job (1969)
[ Michael Caine ][ David Kelly ]

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
[ Dick Van Dyke ][ Roald Dahl ][ Desmond Llewelyn ][ Ian Fleming ]

The Benny Hill Show (1967)

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965)
[ James Fox ][ Graham Stark ]

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1964)

Light Up the Sky! (1960)

Pantomania: Babes in the Wood (1957)

Who Done It? (1956)

The Christmas Service Show (1953)

Trivia

Comedian.
Was one of only a handful of TV comedians (the others being Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason) who had control over the circumstances of production of their respective TV shows.
Died in his favorite chair while watching television.
At the time of his death, a large box was found in his apartment. The many awards and honours he had earned throughout his career had been placed in the box as if they were unimportant to him.
Despite his wealth and success, he never owned a car, did his own shopping, lived in a two room apartment, but never used the second floor. According to one of his obituaries, he once refused to repair the leaky roof in his mother's home because it was "too expensive".
After complaints that his television comedy sketches were too sexual, he began casting children to appear on his shows. But instead of hiring professional child actors, he hired the children of the television crew, stating that their laughing to his sight gags were genuine.
When Hill passed away in April 1992, his estate was worth an estimated £10 million. The only will Hill created left his estate to his parents who both died years ago. Next in line were his brother and sister, neither of whom he had a close relationship with, but like his parents are also dead. As a result, Hill's estate was divided among his seven nieces and nephews.
His father and uncle were circus clowns, performing in the circus until they both left for military service during WWI.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 216-217. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387.
Related to Holly Valance. His cousin is her grandfather.
Born on the same day as Telly Savalas, whose "Kojak" (1973) character he impersonated on his 1969-1989 Thames TV show.
Was born on the same day that V.I. Lenin died.

Naked Photos of Benny Hill are available at MaleStars.com. They currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips, Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars.