Cyril Fletcher
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Cyril Fletcher (25 June 1913 – 2 January 2005) was an English comedian, broadcaster, pantomime impresario, actor, gardener and businessman. His catchphrase was "Pin back your lugholes".[1] He was best known for his "Odd Odes", which later formed a section of the television show That's Life! from 1973 to 1981.[2]
Early life
Fletcher was born in Watford, the son of a solicitor, who was the Friern Barnet town clerk.[3] Following schooling at Woodhouse School, North Finchley,[4] where he first began to entertain by composing witty poems about his schoolmasters,[5] he graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Career
Fletcher first began performing the Odd Odes in 1937, long before they first appeared on television (though he did appear on pre World War II television).[6] He developed the idea when he was short of material for a radio show. The first, Odd Ode, was a comic, yet sentimental, reading of Edgar Wallace's war poem Dreamin' of Thee. Following this broadcast, he was given a regular programme on Radio Luxembourg; it was this show that brought him to national attention. He was sometimes billed as "Cyril Fletcher, the Odd Oder".[7]
He appeared as a panellist on the BBC programme What's My Line?, and was the presenter of Central TV's Gardening Today for fourteen years, and Channel Television's Cyril Fletcher's TV Garden, which ran for 2 years from 1990 to 1992.
A Freemason and a businessman, Fletcher believed it important to diversify in such a fickle business as show business.[8] With his wife Betty Astell, he owned a company producing pantomimes in theatres around the country. He founded Associated Speakers, an agency for after-dinner speakers, who represented The Duke of Bedford and Lord Longford, as well as himself.[9]
Personal life
Fletcher and his wife Betty Astell were married on 18 May 1941. He died on 2 January 2005, his wife dying later that year.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Selected filmography
- Yellow Canary (1943)
- Nicholas Nickleby (1947)
- A Piece of Cake (1948)
References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Fletcher, Cyril (1973). The Countryman: A Quarterly Review and Miscellany of Rural Life and Progress 73. Oxford: J.W. Robertson Scott. ISSN 0011-0272. page 47.
- ↑ Fletcher, Cyril (1978). Nice One Cyril: Being the Odd Odessey and the Anecdotage of a Comedian. London: Random House. Template:ISBN. page 19.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Profile, Alexandra Palace Television Society website; accessed 18 March 2015.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
External links
- Template:Trim/ Cyril Fletcher at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Associated Speakers
- Pages with script errors
- 1913 births
- 2005 deaths
- Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England
- English male comedians
- Male actors from Watford
- Alumni of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
- People educated at Friern Barnet Grammar School
- 20th-century English comedians
- 21st-century English comedians
- Comedians from Hertfordshire