Jackie Hamilton (born John Kearns, 12 July 1937 – 12 August 2003) was a British stand-up comedian, nicknamed the "Pele of Comedy". His problems with alcohol, idiosyncratic delivery and strong Liverpudlian accent were factors in his missing out on national success, but his slick anticlimactic style of observational comedy was well regarded in his home town of Liverpool, and he gave a graphic commentary on the social history of

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

Biography

Hamilton was born off

Scotland Road Scotland Road, known locally as Scottie Road, is the section of the A59 road situated near the docks in the Vauxhall district of north Liverpool, England. History Scotland Road was created in the 1770s as a turnpike road to Preston, Lancashir ...

, a dockland area in north Liverpool, where he lived with two sisters, Margaret and Susie and a Brother Joey. He married Teresa, and they had four sons and a daughter. He worked casually as a docker and on building sites before becoming an "ale-house comic" who landlords paid in drinks in exchange for a short comedy set. He appeared on the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

TV show '' The Comedians'' in the 1970s and appeared live on both the BBC and ITV. His unreliability lead to London booking agents avoiding him. Right up until a month before he died after a stroke in 2003, Hamilton was performing on the Merseyside club circuit, headlining the

Radio Merseyside BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC's local radio station serving Merseyside. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds, from studios on Hanover Street in Liverpool. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 203,00 ...

Summer Friday in front of more than 900 people. Hamilton died from a stroke in Knowsley, Merseyside on 12 August 2003, at the age of 66.

Tributes

A plaque to Hamilton was unveiled at Eldonian Village Hall in 2004. On 10 April 2007 a profile of Jackie Hamilton entitled ''Standing up for Liverpool'' was broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

. Presented by

Les Dennis Leslie Dennis Heseltine (born 12 October 1953) is an English television presenter, actor, and comedian. He presented ''Family Fortunes'' from 1987 until 2002. Early life Dennis was born Leslie Dennis Heseltine on 12 October 1953 in the Liverpoo ...

and produced by Tony Staveacre, it explored the life and career of the much-loved joker, using rare tapes of the man himself in interview and performance and the reminiscences of

Ricky Tomlinson Eric "Ricky" Tomlinson (born 26 September 1939) is an English actor. He is best known for his television roles as Bobby Grant in '' Brookside'', DCI Charlie Wise in ''Cracker'' and Jim Royle in '' The Royle Family'', and playing the titular cha ...

, Lennie Chesworth and Mickey Finn.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Jackie 1937 births 2003 deaths 20th-century English comedians Comedians from Liverpool English male comedians