Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 20 April 1992) was an English comedian and actor, best remembered for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Biography

Hill never married or had children; he proposed to two women, but neither accepted his marriage proposals. He never owned his own home in London nor a car (although he could drive) and instead preferred to rent a place rather than buy one. He rented a double-room apartment in the London district Queen's Gate for 26 years and around 1986 he moved to Fairwater House in Teddington; while looking for somewhere to live, he lived at 88 Westrow Gardens in Southampton.

Despite being a millionaire many times over, he continued with the frugal habits that he picked up from his parents, notably his father, such as buying cheap food at supermarkets, walking for miles rather than paying for a taxi unless someone picked up the tab for a limousine, constantly patching and mending the same clothes even when the balance on his account at the Halifax Building Society reached seven figures. In one of his obituaries, a story was told of how he reportedly refused to mend his mother's leaky roof because it was "too expensive" and after she died, he kept the family home in Southampton as a shrine to her and did not change a thing at all. Rumours circulated that he was gay, but he always denied them.

The only luxury that he permitted himself was foreign travelling and even then, he would stay in modest accommodations rather than five-star hotels.

Hill was a huge Francophile and enjoyed several visits to France, notably in Marseilles, where until the 1980s, he could anonymously go to outdoor cafes, ride public transport and socialize with local women. He could also speak French fluently and also knew German, Dutch and Italian.