Harry Worth

Harry Bourlon Illingsworth (20 November 1917 – 20 July 1989), professionally known as Harry Worth, was an English comedy actor, comedian and ventriloquist. Worth portrayed a charming, gentle and genial character, totally bemused by life, creating comedic confusion wherever he went.

Early life

Worth was born in Hoyland Common, West Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest child of a miner. He had ten siblings. When he was only five months old, his father died from injuries resulting from an industrial accident. He left school at 14 and was a miner for eight years. He earned 2 shillings 2½ pence a day and worked near the lift in the mine; he said he hated every minute of it. He joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1941.''Daily Mirror'', 15 August 1971, page 11: "Harry Lands a Scoop"

As a teenager, he was in the Tankersley Amateur Dramatics Society and taught himself ventriloquism from a book he borrowed from the local library, buying his first dummy in 1936. During the Second World War, he performed in an RAF variety show in India and had extra material written for him by the show's director, Wallie Okin. Worth warned his audience beforehand that he was not very good: according to ''ITMA'' impressionist Peter Cavanagh, this was the start of his apologetic and inept style.

He was a variety act for many years before he became well known and was often at the bottom of any 'bill'. Having left the RAF, and adamant he would never go down the mines again, he started in show business with his first booking at the Bradford Mechanics' Institute in 1946. In 1947 he married his wife Kay and in 1948, like many other comedians from the forces, he got an audition at London's Windmill Theatre. Of 40 in the audition, he passed, along with Morecambe and Wise and Tony Hancock. He did six shows a day as comedian between fan dancers. In 1948 he also made his first radio appearance in a show ''New to You''. He now had two dummies for his ventriloquist act, Fotheringay and Clarence, but meanwhile developed his performing voice.

He toured for two years with Laurel and Hardy towards the end of their careers. He said he could always go in and talk with them and they told him about Hollywood and their work there. When Oliver Hardy watched his show in Nottingham in 1952, he persuaded Worth to drop the ventriloquist routine and concentrate on becoming a comedian, which he then did. His first stage act without ventriloquism was in Newcastle. He continued to include ventriloquism in his cabaret act through his career, performing much of the material that he had used during the war. This included three appearances in the Royal Variety Show.

After appearing a number of times on ''Variety Bandbox'', Worth gained his own radio show, ''Thirty Minutes Worth''. He took his scripts seriously and did not '' ad lib''. He said he built a style of dithering in his shows without even realising it.

Television career

Worth's first television appearance was a five-minute standup on '' Henry Hall's Guest Night'' in 1955. He became well known to the public and even appeared at the London Palladium, after which he took the show to Manchester, the main place for variety in those days, for eight weeks. In 1960, the television programme ''The Trouble With Harry'' was broadcast. John Ammonds and Worth wrote the pilot script in three to four weeks. A series of six programmes was commissioned, and was written by Vince Powell, Ronnie Taylor and Frank Roscoe.

He made this style his own by creating a character with whom the public could connect. He once said, "If Harry (the character) ever looked directly at the camera, or the audience, it would all be over". The character was Harry and everyone saw Harry as Harry.

He is now best remembered for his 1960s series ''Here's Harry'', later re-titled ''Harry Worth'', which ran for 10 years and over 100 episodes (the longest running British sitcom of the time, and still one of only a handful to run for over 100 episodes). The opening titles of ''Harry Worth'' featured Worth stopping in the street to perform an optical trick involving a shop window: raising one arm and one leg which were reflected in the window, thus giving the impression of levitation. Reproducing this effect was popularly known as "doing a Harry Worth". The shop window sequence first used in ''Here's Harry'' was filmed at St Ann's Square, Manchester, at Hector Powes tailor's shop. The idea for this was suggested by Vince Powell, who had done it himself as a child.

One famous comic sketch involved Worth and his family preparing for a royal visit to the area, during which the Queen was to visit his house. His fussing about the house drove his family mad. Just before the Queen was due to arrive, a beggar arrived at the door and kept coming back as an increasingly frustrated Worth tried to get him to go away. When a knock came on the door one more time Worth grabbed a bucket of filthy water and threw it out of the door at the caller, only to find that it was not the beggar but the Queen standing there, and he had just soaked her. Another sketch involved Worth complaining to a policeman outside the Houses of Parliament that Big Ben clock was slow because Jimmy Young, the BBC Radio 2 presenter known for "always being right" had said that it was ten minutes past ten, while the clock said it was 10am. After pestering the policeman, Worth had the clock moved forward by ten minutes. Just as the clock was changed, Young appeared on the radio to apologise that the studio clock was wrong by ten minutes. A mortified Worth was seen speeding away in his car, to furious shouts from the angry policeman.

Following the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, the BBC screened ''Here's Harry'' as part of its regular programming, a decision which led to the broadcaster receiving complaints through over 2,000 phone calls and 500 letters and telegrams.

Although never scripted, his catchphrase was generally known as "My name is Harry Worth. I don't know why – but, there it is!" It was really invented by impressionists of the day to give a common ground tag line to work with. One running joke in the television show involved references to Harry's never seen aunt known only as "Auntie", the popular nickname for the BBC
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