Henry McGee born London 14 May 1929
Died London 28 January 2006.
🎭 Henry McGee Career
Henry James Marris-McGee (14 May 1928 – 28 January 2006) was an English character actor and comedian whose career stretched for more than five decades. He became especially famous as a deadpan straight man and announcer on The Benny Hill Show, but he also had an extensive career in theatre, television, films and advertising.
👶 Early life
- 🎂 Born: 14 May 1928
- 📍 Born in: South Kensington, London, England
- 🏫 Education: Stonyhurst College
- 🎭 Profession: Actor
- ⚓ National Service: Royal Navy
- 🎓 Drama training: Italia Conti Stage Academy
- ⚰️ Died: 28 January 2006, aged 77, in Twickenham, London
McGee originally hoped to become a doctor, but his father died when he was 17, creating financial difficulties that prevented him from following that career. He had already enjoyed appearing in school plays, however, and eventually decided to pursue acting.
🎭 Beginning of his acting career
After completing his Royal Navy National Service, McGee trained for two years at the Italia Conti Stage Academy. He subsequently worked in repertory theatre in Britain and Australia.
His professional stage career began in the early 1950s. One of his earliest appearances was at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, where he appeared in Shakespearean productions.
He then spent several years in repertory, gaining experience playing a wide variety of characters. He also toured Australia with the J. C. Williamson theatrical organisation.
🎭 Stage experience:
McGee's theatre work became an important foundation for the precise timing and deadpan delivery that later made him such an effective comedy performer.
🎬 Film career
McGee made his film debut in 1950 in Seven Days to Noon, appearing as a soldier in an uncredited role.
His film appearances included:
📅 Year🎬 Film👤 Role1950Seven Days to NoonSoldier1956Sailor Beware!Milkman1965FanaticRector1969The Italian JobTailor1973Digby, the Biggest Dog in the WorldTV Announcer1973Holiday on the BusesHoliday Camp Manager1974The Cherry PickerPilkington1976Adventures of a Taxi DriverInspector Rogers1977Come Play with MeDeputy Prime Minister1978Revenge of the Pink PantherOfficer Bardot1978Carry On EmmannuelleHarold Hump1994Asterix Conquers AmericaJulius Caesar — English voice
His film career ranged from serious productions to British comedy and farce.
🚌 Henry McGee in Holiday on the Buses
One of McGee's most memorable appearances for British comedy fans came in 1973's Holiday on the Buses.
🚌 Role: Holiday Camp Manager
He appeared alongside:
- 🚌 Reg Varney — Stan Butler
- 👮 Stephen Lewis — Inspector Blakey
- 👩 Doris Hare — Mabel Butler
- 👨 Michael Robbins — Arthur Rudge
- 👩 Anna Karen — Olive Rudge
- 🚌 Bob Grant — Jack Harper
The film sees Stan, Jack and Blakey working at a holiday camp, where the usual chaos follows them. McGee played the holiday camp manager, providing another example of his ability to play an authoritative character surrounded by comic mayhem.
📺 Television career
McGee became a familiar face on British television during the 1950s and 1960s.
He appeared in programmes including:
📺 The Diary of Samuel Pepys
📺 Tell It to the Marines
📺 Z Cars
📺 The Saint
📺 The Avengers
📺 Gideon's Way
📺 Public Eye
📺 The Wednesday Play
📺 The Worker
📺 The Goodies
📺 Sykes
📺 Doctor in Charge
📺 Rising Damp
📺 It Ain't Half Hot Mum
📺 Last of the Summer Wine
His television career demonstrated his versatility: he could play policemen, officials, doctors, businessmen, conmen and numerous comic characters.
😂 The Benny Hill years
The role that ultimately defined McGee's career was his long association with Benny Hill.
🎤 He became one of Hill's principal straight men, meaning that he would react to Benny Hill's outrageous behaviour with an extremely serious, controlled expression.
He also became famous for announcing:
“The Benny Hill Show!”
McGee's deadpan manner provided a perfect contrast to Hill's energetic comedy. His ability to maintain a completely straight expression while surrounded by increasingly ridiculous situations became one of his trademarks.
His association with The Benny Hill Show lasted approximately 20 years, making him one of the most recognisable supporting performers in the programme's history.
🤣 Working with other comedians
McGee became particularly valuable as a comic straight man.
He also worked with comedian Charlie Drake, including the long-running sitcom The Worker. His style was based on playing the situation completely seriously, allowing the comedian around him to generate the bigger laughs.
His deadpan approach was later praised as a major part of his comic technique. British Comedy Guide describes him as an actor who gradually transformed the role of the straight man into something of an art form.
📺 Rising Damp
One of McGee's notable television comedy performances came in 1975's Rising Damp.
🎭 Character: Seymour
He played an upmarket conman who manages to deceive Leonard Rossiter's character, Rigsby.
The performance was sufficiently memorable that the basic storyline was later adapted for the Rising Damp film, although McGee's role was played by Denholm Elliott in the movie.
🍯 The Sugar Puffs / Honey Monster advertisements
Another generation knew Henry McGee from television advertising.
🍯 He appeared in famous Sugar Puffs advertisements alongside the Honey Monster.
He played the character popularly remembered as “Mummy”, becoming associated with the advertising catchphrase about telling viewers about the honey.
The commercials helped make McGee familiar to British television audiences beyond his acting work.
🎭 Later stage career
McGee continued to work extensively on stage.
His theatre credits included comedy and farce productions such as:
🎭 Uproar in the House
🎭 Run for Your Wife
🎭 It Runs in the Family
🎭 Funny Money
🎭 The School for Wives
His ability to deliver lines with a completely straight face made him particularly effective in farce.
📺 Final television appearances
McGee continued acting well into his seventies.
One of his final notable television appearances was in ** Last of the Summer Wine ** in 2003.
🎭 Episode: The Miraculous Curing of Old Goff Helliwell
📅 Year: 2003
He also continued to receive recognition for his earlier comedy work during his final years.
🏆 Career highlights
⭐ Henry McGee's best-known work
🎭 Actor: Over five decades of professional work
😂 Comedy: Specialist in deadpan and straight-man performances
🎤 Benny Hill: Approximately 20 years as announcer and straight man
🍯 Sugar Puffs: Famous appearances with the Honey Monster
🚌 On the Buses connection: Holiday camp manager in Holiday on the Buses
🎬 Films: The Italian Job, Holiday on the Buses, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Carry On Emmannuelle
📺 Television: The Avengers, The Saint, The Goodies, Rising Damp, Sykes, Last of the Summer Wine
🎭 Theatre: Extensive career in repertory, West End comedy and farce
🕯️ Death and legacy
Henry McGee died on 28 January 2006, aged 77, in Twickenham, London. He had spent his final months in a nursing home. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery.
His legacy rests particularly on his extraordinary skill as a straight man. Rather than competing with the comedian beside him, McGee understood that the funniest reaction was often no reaction at all.
His long partnership with Benny Hill made him instantly recognisable to millions of television viewers, while his work in Holiday on the Buses, The Italian Job, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Rising Damp and countless other productions demonstrated just how extensively he worked.
🎬 Henry McGee — Career in one line
🎭 Stage actor → 📺 television character actor → 😂 comedy straight man → 🎤 Benny Hill favourite → 🍯 Sugar Puffs star → 🚌 Holiday on the Buses actor → ⭐ enduring British comedy character actor.
Daily Telegraph Obituary
Henry McGee, died on aged 76, was a character actor best known for his role as straight man to the television comics Benny Hill and Charlie Drake.
He had only to "feed" their clowning to raise laughter, but he did so with immaculate, farcical solemnity. Few actors knew how to keep so straight a face in front of such sustained absurdity. McGee made a brilliant foil.
From 1965 McGee forged a memorable partnership with Drake in the television series The Worker, in which he played the hapless Employment Exchange official Mr Pugh; one job failure after another would cause him, quivering with rage, to haul Drake over the counter by his lapels.
Later McGee began his 20-year association with Benny Hill, often serving as the announcer on Hill's television show, delivering the introduction: "Yes! It's The Benny Hill Show!"
On the small screen, though, his art came necessarily in snippets, whereas in the theatre it found a wider, deeper and more imaginative scope. It still had, in farce, the same hilarious gravity; but the opportunity for characterization and the exploitation of timing and teamwork flourished on stage.
With his large, round eyes, uncompromising gaze, thrusting chin and bushy eyebrows, McGee used his clown's face shrewdly. If not dead straight (in exasperated response to an acknowledged clown) it could undergo a sequence of remarkable contortions to suit character or situation.
In farce, comedy, melodrama or pantomime, McGee was a most disciplined actor. A straight stare could be as commanding as a long face; a fixed grin as funny as a glare. Like all essentially comic actors, he could switch moods powerfully from frivolity to tragedy.
His gift for never showing in his looks or voice the least sign of anticipating laughter made him one of the funniest actors on the British stage. Unlike most of the clowns with whom he worked on television, he never let it be felt for a moment that he was contributing to the fun.
And, unlike many exponents of farce, McGee also knew how to exploit the comic value of stillness - though in the theatre it was usually the curl of a lip, the gleam of an eye, the flick of an eyebrow or the movement of a nostril which set the house roaring.
As one critic wrote of his performance as the waiter in the farce Out of Order: "The night belongs to Henry McGee. With his white hair, pale face and completely dead-pan expression, he retains a wonderful, genial smile as the mania increases and the world collapses around him. He only has to raise an eyebrow to raise a laugh."
McGee relished the rigors of stage farce, especially long tours with different audiences nightly and different kinds of stage. He also enjoyed the technique. He once faced three first nights in three plays with two companies within two weeks and three days at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne.
Recounting the ordeal on a postcard to a friend with characteristic precision, McGee - then in his late sixties - added: "I don't think I did that in my salad days, let alone my cheese and biscuits time."
The only child of a Rolls-Royce engineer, Henry McGee was born at South Kensington on May 14 1929 and educated at Stonyhurst. He had hoped to become a doctor, but his father died when Henry was 17 and his mother could not afford to put him through medical school.
Having enjoyed acting at school, and taking pride in his mother's links with the stage - her ancestry could be traced back to the early 18th century as far as Kitty Clive - young Henry decided to train for the stage.
First, however, came National Service, in the Navy, as a wireless operator working six floors below the Admiralty in Whitehall. He never saw a ship or the sea during his two years.
With a government grant to attend the Italia Conti Stage Academy, McGee trained for two years, which included, in 1953, a West End spear-carrying stint at the old St James's Theatre for the visiting Comédie-Française. After a Shakespearean season for Robert Atkins at the Open-Air Theatre, Regent's Park, McGee went to Northampton rep for three years. He then spent the next two years in Australia with the JC Williamson theatrical organisation in For Better, For Worse before returning to England in the 1960s.
He soon found work in television, playing a policeman in Softly, Softly and numerous villains and detectives. He then took the serious lead in DH Lawrence's Jimmy and the Desperate Women. Having started in The Worker, his talent for farce was seen again in the 1968 award-winning series of Feydeau farces, Paris 1900.
McGee earned a living from television, appearing in No Hiding Place; The Avengers; The Saint; and The Liars. He was memorable as an unreliable friend in Let There Be Love, with Paul Eddington and Nanette Newman, and as a sniffy neighbour in No, That's Me Over Here, with Ronnie Corbett.
In one of the earliest post-war revivals of Ben Travers's Aldwych farces, McGee's "amusing dimness in the Ralph Lynn role" won critical favour in Plunder (Leatherhead, 1965). "With a face like Bob Hope's and a chin to match, Mr McGee's eager novice in midnight burglary is worth travelling to Leatherhead to see," The Daily Telegraph assured readers.
Three years later McGee began his longest television partnership of all - with Benny Hill, which lasted, on and off, until Hill's death in 1992.
Among other television comics whom McGee "fed" were Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Reg Varney, Eric Sykes, Terry Scott, Dick Emery, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ted Rogers, Max Wall and Lance Percival. Other series included Up the Workers, Rising Damp, The Goodies, The Late Mr H, and A Penny for Your Dreams.
Meanwhile, in the West End, McGee had leading parts in Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot's Uproar in the House (Whitehall) and in Joyce Rayburn's The Man Most Likely To… (Duke of York's). By the 1990s he was acting for, and with, Ray Cooney, and became one of that farceur's most reliable leading men.
Later stage credits included Run for Your Wife (Whitehall and Duchess Theatres); It Runs in the Family and Funny Money (both Playhouse); The Odd Couple (Haymarket); Molière's School for Wives (Piccadilly); and several tours.
Film credits included The Italian Job, Holiday on the Buses, Carry on Emmanuelle, The Biggest Dog in the World and The Pink Panther.
A teetotaler, Henry McGee enjoyed gliding and collecting old engravings