Lennie Bennett dies aged 70

chris

Lennie Bennett, who died on April 8 aged 70, became a familiar face on television in the 1980s when he starred in Celebrity Squares and presented two other popular game shows, Punchlines and Lucky Ladders.

Trained as a journalist, he got his break as an entertainer on The Good Old Days music hall show on BBC Television in 1966. He later appeared on Granada's popular showcase for stand-up comics, The Comedians.

With his signature bubble-perm hairstyle and natty tailored suits, Bennett achieved national fame on the BBC in the late 1970s when he and his comedy partner Jerry Stevens were acclaimed as the new Morecambe and Wise – the originals having defected to ITV – and made four television series of The Lennie and Jerry Show.

But Bennett found that the familiar format of sketches and banter soon palled, and having wound the partnership up, sought to rebuild his career as a solo artist. Guest appearances followed on such shows as Star Turn and Blankety Blank, before Bennett was picked to host ITV's successful Saturday night game show Punchlines, which ran for six years.

Later he presented Lucky Ladders on ITV, which became Britain's most-watched daytime television game show. But while viewers tuned in by the million, critics were less impressed, one likening Bennett to someone who had been "chucked out of a working men's club for falling asleep in a urinal".

His career having waned, by 1995 he was reported by a tabloid newspaper to have been living in a £25-a-night hotel "after his lover booted him out of her £400,000 home".

"I gave up the life of a millionaire for her," Bennett complained, "and now I'm homeless."

Latterly Bennett had run a takeaway burger bar and kebab shop on Blackpool seafront called Fat B'Stards.

He was born Michael Berry on September 26 1938 at Cleveleys, between Blackpool and Fleetwood. After attending the Palatine Secondary School, Blackpool, he became a journalist on the West Lancashire Evening Gazette, interviewing visiting entertainers at assorted Blackpool venues and writing his own comedy material in his spare time.

Deciding to try his luck as a professional entertainer, Mike Berry began as half of a double act, but went solo in 1964, changed his name to Lennie Bennett, and launched himself on the northern club and pub comedy circuit. In the late 1960s he made the breakthrough into television with regular appearances on light entertainment shows and as a panellist on ITV's Jokers Wild before becoming a panellist on Celebrity Squares. In 1979 he hosted a television talent contest called Rising Stars for the BBC.

Bennett found himself increasingly out of step with the new wave of politically- inspired comedians who came to prominence in the Thatcher era; in 1980 he heckled some of the acts at London's Comedy Store, shouting obscenities after being savaged by comics such as Alexei Sayle and Keith Allen. A chat show for London Weekend, Bennett Bites Back (1982) was not recommissioned.

He later turned to hosting corporate events and made frequent appearances on the after-dinner speaking circuit. In 1998 he was banned from driving and fined for drink-driving after being stopped on his way home from a charity night at a golf club in Bracknell and found to be twice over the limit.

In the same year Bennett, a keen golfer, apparently turned down an offer of £500 and a limousine there and back to speak at the Press Golf Society's annual dinner at a club in Pall Mall. "I don't get out of bed for 500 quid!" he reportedly told the hapless society secretary, a Bennett fan who lived near him in Windsor.

In middle age Bennett suffered health problems, and in 1994 survived a cardiac arrest, which required a bypass operation.

Lennie Bennett's first marriage ended in divorce after 29 years. His second wife, Teresa Jackson, whom he met in 1989 when she was a contestant on Lucky Ladders, also divorced him, and he is survived by a son.


Source:telegraph

ITS A SCAM !

Thats sad....i think you will need to be in your late 30's / early 40's to remember him...I can remember watching him on the Tv at our local social club (in the posh room !) when i was a young lad...He was funny.

Channel Hopper

The notion that a comedian's home life is usually full of tragedy rings true again.

RIP Lennie.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"