Keith Chegwin 1957 - 2017

Keith Chegwin, presenter, nudist and inventor of the slightly-racist boardgame Chinese Cheggers, died today.

Chegwin was born in Liverpool on 17^th January 1957. As a young man he was talent-spotted by June Collins, the mother of Phil Collins. This was how young Keith came to sing the first song that Phil Collins ever wrote, an experience which sadly put neither of them off the idea.

His TV career started with roles with the Children's Film Foundation (now known as Platinum Dunes) and quickly graduated to mainstream TV. In 1973, Chegwin appeared in the pilot episode of Open All Hours, about an old shopkeeper, and The Liver Birds, a series following the adventures of a pair of female Hannibal Lecter copycats. He also appeared in more adult fare, featuring in ITV’s ode to masturbation, The Wackers and also in the controversial interracial porno, The Adventures of Black Beauty. 

In the mid 1970s, Chegwin moved away from acting, becoming a household name as a presenter of the multi-ethnic swinging show, Multi-coloured Swap Shop. After this came stints on Saturday Superstore, which introduced a generation of kids to the delights of a Saturday job on the tills at Morrisons, and of course the tragically prophetic, Cheggers Goes Pop.

To recreate this classic Cheggers look, just ask your hairdresser for the 'Menopausal Headmisstress'

Chegwin's career waned in the late 1980s and 1990s, due to his alcoholism, which he revealed to Richard and Judy in 1992, leading a sympathetic Richard Madely to swipe a couple of bottles of champagne for him from the local Tesco.

Not to be kept down, Cheggers made something of a revival with a role in Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. His segment, Down Your Doorstep, saw Keith investigating the horrors of homelessness with his usual cheeky charm, coining the catchphrase, “Wake up you beggars – it’s Cheggers!”

Probably his most famous role in his later years, though, was when Cheggers made headlines for the show The Naked Jungle for Channel 5. This was presented by Chegwin entirely naked apart from one item of clothing - a pith helmet – making life entirely too easy for the nation’s headline writers.

Christine Keeler also died this  month

After this, Cheggers’ career followed the traditional route for declining fame – featuring on Celebrity Big Brother, appearing as a contestant on BBC1's painfully—aptly named Pointless Celebrities, and competing in Dancing on Ice, in which celebrities would attempt to figure skate after smoking a substantial amount of methamphetamine.

His autobiography, Shaken But Not Stirred, was published in 1995, and he passed away from lung disease today.

Goodbye Cheggers.

Bruce Forsythe 1928 – 2017

Bruce Forsythe, singer, dancer and author of Day of The Jackal, has died.

Bruce was born and raised in Edmonton, Middlesex. He was born to Florence, a singer, and John Thomas Forsythe-Johnson, also known as The Machine.

He started in show business aged 14 with an act called “Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom” in which, the young Bruce would go 12 rounds with female boxer Barbara Buttrick. It wasn’t long, though, before, Bruce made his debut on television.

He made his first appearance at the age of 11 in 1939, just three years after BBC started. The show was Come and Be Televised, an early foray by the BBC into broadcasting amateur porn.

After this, Bruce tried to develop his career. His first advert in trade paper The Stage read: "Bruce Forsyth: available for anything," which any viewer of Come and be Televised would have known already.

Regular strikes in the seventies meant you could be left waiting at the Post Office for hours

Meanwhile, the other big ticket event of 1939 was the outbreak of World War II. All the nation’s healthy young men were signed up for the fight. Except Bruce.

As it happened, the list of essential-to-the-nation professions protected from being drafted for the front lines included doctors, sewage workers, miners and light entertainers. So Brucey bravely battled the Bosch from Studio B, deploying an arsenal of pithy one-liners in the service of freedom, democracy and a nice chuckle for that tricky hour between the end of the news and the start of the bombing.

 Bruce was probably most famous for his stints on a string of much-loved British games shows. He fronted The Generation Game, a show in which families competed to see who could pedal up the most electricity in 30 minutes, Play Your Cards Right, which asked contestants to look at a playing card and decide if it was a big number, or a small one, and You Bet! where a group of players had to guess which one of them was secretly in recovery with Gamblers Anonymous.

A still from Brucey’s controversial Stork adverts. Many found the strapline ‘buy Stork margarine or I’ll fucking kill you’ a little full-on. 

In 1986, he even went to the United States to host a game show on ABC, Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak, in which he would interrupt a different sporting event each week by running onto the pitch wearing nothing but a light coating of chilli sauce.

Not all his gameshows were so popular, however. His failures included Takeover Bid (there were no bids), Hollywood or Bust (bust) and Didn’t They Do Well, which was a title just asking for trouble really.

In his personal life, Bruce was blessed with many loves. From 1953 to 1973, he was married to Penny Calvert. After this, he was married to Anthea Redfern, the hostess on The Generation Game. Then, in 1980, judging the 1980 Miss World competition, he fell in love with fellow judge, 1975’s Miss World, Wilnelia Merced.

From marrying the girl next door to wedding a TV celebrity to hitching up with Miss World, it’s hard not to suspect he spent his life working up not just the career ladder, but the wife ladder as well. He did equally well on both ladders.

Forsthye had something of a late-career renaissance as co-presenter of S&M Ballroom Competition Strictly Come Dancing. In fact, it was on a special edition of this show that he made his last ever TV appearance - Strictly Children in Need Special, in which the normal dancers and celebrities were replaced for one episode only by at-risk youth.

In the end, ill-health caught up with Bruce. After a chest infection, and other issues, on 18 August 2017 he died at his home.

He made it to the grand old age of 89, having had a career in television for almost as long as there had been television. Didn't he do well?

Brucey Bonus– five famous Forsythe phrases 

1. “Didn’t he do well.” 
2. “Nice to see you, to see you, nice.” 
3. “Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.” 
4. “You don’t get anything for a pair, not in this game, this isn’t snap, for fuck’s sake.“ 
5. “You’re much fitter than my current wife, will you marry me?”

Glenn Campbell 1936 - 2017

The country singer Glenn Campbell has died.

 Glen Travis Campbell was born in Billstown on April 22, 1936, the seventh son of twelve children. It is not recorded whether his father was also a seventh son, but then nobody has seen a picture of Campbell down by the crossroads either.

Glenn was born to John Wesley, theologian and the inventor of Methodism, and Carrie Dell Campbell. The family were sharecroppers, which meant they grew stock certificates from seed investments.

Campbell started playing guitar at age four after being given a five-dollar guitar as a gift by his uncle Boo, which was a surprise.

By the time he was six he was performing on local radio stations, probably because it was a lot preferable to picking cotton. In 1954 he moved to Albuquerque to join his uncle’s band, known as Dick Bills, a popular slang terms for penicillin prescriptions.

Eventually, Campbell headed West to Los Angeles where he joined the superviliain group the Wrecking Crew, comprised of Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, and the Wrecker.

Whilst there, he also played on recordings by big names including Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkeys, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

In May 1961 Campbell was signed up by Crest toothpaste, for whom he created his famous range of soups. In 1965 he finally had a hit, reaching number 45 on the Hot 100 with "Universal Soldier". The song had a deeply pacifist message. When asked about it, Campbell said, "people who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung.” Right then.

Things continued to look up and Campbell had more hits with Wichita Lineman, the ballad of a Kansas cocaine dealer, and Galveston a haunting hymn to the pink indigestion medicine.

Campbell's producer told him it was high time he 'laid down some tracks' 

Campbell’s most famous hit came in the mid-1971s, when he reached number one with Rhinestone Cowboy, from the soundtrack to the New York hustler movie starring Dustin Hoffman.

It wasn’t all good news. his first feature film, 1970's Norwood, flopped almost everywhere, except for a niche South London crowd. And Campbell lapsed into alcoholism and cocaine addiction, possibly due to the stress of his ongoing feud with Macdonalds - he would freak out if he so much as glanced at a fillet-o-fish.

Few remembered Campbell's brief stint as 'Hutch'

In 2011 Campbell revealed that he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. In 2012, he revealed that he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. In 2013 he did the same, at which point it was clear he wasn’t joking around.

He refused to be a victim though. In 2012 he performed his final "Goodbye Tour", before moving into a long-term care facility until his death.

Goodbye Glenn Campbell. We know you’re out there somewhere, still on the line.

Chester Bennington 1976 - 2017

Chester Bennington was widely known as the man behind business social media site LinkedIn Park and gained prominence as a singer in the band of the same name.

Bennington was born from his own ashes in Arizona on March 20, 1976. His mother was a nurse, while his father was a police detective.

They divorced when he was 11, when he began a lifetime struggle with drugs.

Bennington first began singing with a band called Sean Dowdell and His Friends? which was as popular as it was grammatically annoying. He then joined post-grunge outfit Grey Daze.

Linkin Park enjoyed enormous and immediate acclaim with their debut album Hybrid Theory. Their sound became emblematic of the nu-metal genre, one of the few genres to include a diet, which consisted only of korn and limp biscuits.

Hybrid Theory sold more than 20 million copies, reaching No 2 on the US chart and No 4 in the UK. Singles from the album include their moving tribute to Michael Phelps, Crawling, and their classic anthem to anal sex, In the End.

In a surprise move, the band’s follow-up release was Meteor, a free and open-source isomorphic JavaScript web framework.

In his personal life, Bennington was briefly married to Elkie Brooks, with whom he had a child, Jaime Lannister. Later, in 2006, he married Talinda Ann Rolls Royce Bentley, with whom he also had twins, whom he named Lilly and Lila, which seems cruel.

Tragically, despite his band’s success, Bennington was unable to overcome his demons, stemming from abuse he experienced as a child and on this day, he committed suicide.

 It was a tragedy, but in his own words, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Goodbye Chester Bennington.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson 1971 - 2017

Tara Pamela Timkinson died today.

Born to an Argentinian model and an Olympic skier, Tara Lara-Pumpkinson went to school at the Shergar School for the Posh in Dorset.

After this, her early life followed that of many of her peer group, with absolutely no unfair advantages from being posh. Her first job at Rothschild's bank was inevitable after completing the ideal post-school qualification - a dance and drama course at the London Studio Centre.

But falling into banking was not enough for Flora Burner-Bumpkinson, so she fell into fame instead.

After being pictured kissing Prince Charles on the slopes (and who doesn't like a nice kiss on the slopes eh?), she soon became a favourite of paparazzi in the swanky nightspots of London.

Soon enough, Sara Gurner-Atkinson became famous as an 'It-Girl', which was short for 'nobody knows what she does, but she looks going doing It-Girl'.

It turned out the 'It' that she did was cocaine. And lots of it. A lifetime of parties fuelled by Colombian Self-raising eventually ending with Mara Turner-Albumen and her septum going their separate ways. Medically, this was bad news for the It-Girl, although it did feature the convenient side effect of leaving one giant nostril enabling the hoovering-up of even more cocaine.

Cara developed a taste for white powder at an early age

During this time, Bahama Farmer-Lumpington converted her fame to other outlets, 'writing' a column in the Sunday Times, written by Wendy Holden. The column was titled 'Yah' and is not to be confused with 'Jah!' the Sunday Times' other column penned by Eddie Grant.

Jar-Jar Coma-Lurkington's literary output also included The Naughty Girl's Guide to Life, which is also best not confused with Life Magazine's Guide to Naughty Girls, which is something quite very different.

These outputs helped grow Laura Turner-Hoochington's reputation for wit, including such gems as, "I would never go out with a man who turned right when boarding  an aircraft", a policy which led to her dating an awful lot of pilots.

All her wit and glitz and bravado, though, covered insecurities and a lack of self-confidence that may also have lay beneath her enthusiasm for mood-altering substances. An enthusiasm that was to lead to a spell in rehab in Arizona in 1999.

Whilst fighting her addiction, she continued to play the fame game. In 2002 Plover Gomer-Pileington was the runner up in the inaugural 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here'.

She also appeared on shows including Blind Date, Loose Women, and Bognor or Bust which all together sounds like one amazing night out. She also appeared in the Royal Wedding in 2011, and in the show Cold Turkey about her attempt to give up smoking by doing loads of cocaine instead.

in 2011 She-ra attended the royal wedding dressed as the letter 'i'. A few drinks later, she claimed to be 'in italics'.

The latter years of her life saw Farrah Burner-Barnington distance herself from her party girl image. She declared,  “I am not the person I was. I’m much calmer… the party world scares me. I am a very quiet person now. I have a better perspective on life.”

Today she passed away from a perforated ulcer at the young age of 45. Let's hope she's enjoying the endless ski slopes of the afterlife.

Don't do drugs, kids.

John Hurt 1940 -2017

John Hurt, actor, raconteur, drinker, wrinkle-factory, died today. Little is known of the birth of John Hurt, save that it was to the son of a preacher man and Dusty Springield. Hurt was on a particularly elegant sofa.  

A chesterfield such as the one where John Hurt was born

Whilst at school Hurt showed an interest in acting, taking the role of Lady Bracknell Town. He uttered the famous line 'A handbag' in answer to the question, 'what will your skin be like in a few years time?'.

Hurt then went on to study at St Martin's College of art and Design, causing his parents to become excited that their dream of him becoming an art teacher might actually come true.

It did not, Hurt pursued his acting dream, appearing in theatre and television. He starred in the 1974 George Harrison funded film Little Malcolm, later remade for television as Malcolm in the Middle. He also appeared in I, Clavdivs as Calligraphy, the emperor who was mad about lettering. He also played cigarette smuggler Winston Smith in 1984 in 1984.

Hurt's breakthrough performance, though, came in the production The Naked Civil Servant. He portrayed Quentin Crisp. At the time, people said playing Crisp would end his career. Then again people say eating crisps will end your life, but that doesn’t make it necessarily a bad idea. Anyway, they were wrong and Hurt's portrayal won him much acclaim.

John Hurt playing a young Maggie Smith playing Quentin Crisp

Continuing his tendency to portray outsiders and misfits, Hurt then went on portray John Merrick, elephant man and part-time guitarist with Adam and the Ants.

It took seven hours of make up for Hurt to look like the elephant man, which makes you wonder how ugly he must have been beforehand. It was worth it though, critics and audiences alike marvelled at the sensitive portrayal of Merrick. Hurt took home an Oscar for his troubles.

It wasn’t just award-winning films he was in, though. He was in stuff you've seen too, including Harry Potter, Hellboy and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Despite all these roles, however, most people will remember John Hurt like this...

The film is, of course, Alien, in which Hurt is seen here experiencing the consequences of the Galaxy's hottest curry.

Hurt's personal life was as colourful as his screen existence too. Hurt drank with O' Toole, Burton and Harris, or at least thought he did, but couldn't really quite remember for sure as it was all a bit of a blur.

With the drinking came trouble, even as late as 2004 when he was thrown out of Spearmint Rhino for 'boorish behaviour' which makes you wonder if he shouldn't have behaved a little more rhino-ish instead.

All this and more was documented in the 2008 film of stories from John's life, The Hurt Locker. 

Hurt was married four times and seemed to really be getting the hang of it on that last go, when pancreatic cancer unfortunately intervened.

Farewell John Hurt, you will always be The Storyteller to me. Also you were Hazel in Watership Down. Brilliant.  

Graham Taylor 1944 - 2017

Graham Taylor, theologian and manager of the England football team, passed away today.

Born in Worksop, Taylor grew up in Sblockedhorpe, the son of a sports journalist who wanted to write about his son for a living.

Taylor showed promise as a player and soon turned professional, becoming The Apprentice at Sblockedhorpe Town FC but he was eventually fired for not selling enough sausages at a continental market. After this, he turned in performances for Grimsby, scoring 37% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It was as a manager, thought, that Taylor will really be remembered.  He found success as manager of Watford Town, a team captained by pop superstar Elton John who was notorious for getting booked for aggresive conduct if the game was scheduled too late on a Saturday. Taylor guided star names such as Jaqueline Blisset and rapper John Barnes to take Watford to the first division.

After this, Taylor went repeated his success with Aston Villa. Then in 1990 he got the job of managing the England team.

Unfortunately for Taylor, his squad included Alan 'Sheep' Shearer, comedian Robin Ince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Peter Beardsley and a load of jizz in goal, none of whom could knock it.

As a result, England was knocked out in the qualifying stages, causing The Sun newspaper to liken Taylor to a turnip, cleverly implying that he was useless, whilst retaining the opportunity should he have turned into a success to use the headline 'That's a turnip for the books'.

This frustrating period was captured memorably in the film The Impossible Job, where he became known for his catchphrases including 'Can we not knock it', 'Do I not like that' and 'You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off'.

Sadly, Taylor was unable to inspire the England players to the heights they have subsequently proved incapable of reaching. In 1993 he resigned to spend more time in his allotment talking to vegetables, who were at least more likely to listen to him.

Further management stints at Watford and Hi Ho Wolverhampton  followed, along with a late-life career as a pundit on Radio 5 Live.

After returning once more to Watford as Director and Interim Chairman, Taylor was made honorary president for life of the club he loved. A stand at the Watford ground on Vicarage road bears his name to this day. It is not a turnip stand.

Graham Tayor has passed away. Do I not like that?

David Bowie 1947 - 2016

David Bowie, actor, singer-songwriter and astronaut passed away today.

Born Davy Jones in Brixton to Peggy and John,

1953 move to Bromley

1962 schoolyard punch-up, the pupil in David’s left eye remained permanently dilated, 

As a youngster he formed a band called the Kon-Rads before quitting to set up a new outfit, a blues-influenced band named the King Bees, a name he hit upon after a particularly insect-infested picnic. After this was another band, the Manish Boys who aren't remembered for much, despite releasing a single with Mr T, I Pity The Fool.  

Little-known musical collaborator

After this came another band, The Lower Third, whose name along showed their lack of ambition, so inevitably the day came that Davy Jones went solo. This was also the first time Bowie displayed his astonishing capacity for self-reinvention, changing his look radically so he was barely recognisable - something that was to become a hallmark of his career. 

From Davy Jones to David Bowie - the first transformation

Bowie put together a backing band called The Buzz, suggesting he still hadn't yet recovered from his obsession with bees. After an initial release of a novelty single entitled The Laughing Gnome flopped, he then released an LP entitled David Bowie because he was still having trouble remembering his new name.  

It was about this time that Bowie started studying mime, which doesn't suggest much faith in his singing.

In 1969, whilst working as an astronaut, Bowie released a recording of his messages back to earth, which became the basis for his breakout hit, Space Oddity. Then in 1970, The Man Who Sold The World was released in the US, prompting many to suspect that, whilst in space, Bowie had encountered aliens... after all, who else would you sell the world to?

The answer came with his next band, when Bowie recruited his new extra-terrestrial friends along with Alvin Stardust's brother into the band Ziggie Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

He went on to score his first UK number one album with Aladdin Sane, the soundtrack to that year's least entertaining panto.

In 1976 Bowie came back to this planet as described in the documentary The Man Who Fell to Earth. It was at this time that he found notoriety by expressing a certain sympathy with the fascism, prompting outrage in the UK so that he ended up seeking to quell people's concerns by relocating to Berlin.

Further success came with the music accompanying seventies throwback cop drama Ashes to Ashes. 

Possibly the peak of Bowie's career, though, came in 1986, when he played Jareth, the Goblin King in the film Labyrinthe, alongside Jennifer Connelly and a number of other muppets.

It was downhill from here, with the formation of Bowie's new band, Tin Ear Machine, and his dabbling in islam resulting in a marriage to a Somalian Imam.

After this, it was basically releasing a load of old rubbish, but in 1997 he put himself back in the headline by releasing Bowie Bonds, a financial instrument that promised investors a big payout if Bowie were to ever construct a substantial piece of national infrastructure.

In latter years, Bowie got his groove back, releasing the single Where Are We Now, giving him his first UK top 10 hit since 1993 and, in 2014 he won the Brit award for Best British Male, which is either an impressive achievement, or speaks pretty badly of all the other British males in the world.

It was to be Bowie's swansong as 2016 was to be the year liver cancer finally got the better of David Bowie.

Thanks for all the tunes, David, you truly were a star, man.