British comic Ken Dodd, a ‘music hall great,’ at 90

Ken Dodd, a titan of a vanishing age of British comedy whose U.K. fame at its peak rivaled that of The Beatles, has died, his publicist said yesterday. He was 90.

Publicist Robert Holmes said Mr. Dodd died Sunday at his Liverpool home — the same house where he was born in 1927. Mr. Dodd, who had recently been hospitalized with a chest infection, married his longtime partner Anne Jones on Friday.

Instantly recognizable for his unruly mop of hair and snaggletoothed grin, Mr. Dodd came up through the hardscrabble ranks of Britain’s variety circuit, where performers kept demanding crowds entertained with songs, a bit of dance and a slew of jokes.

Mr. Dodd was famous for his rapid-fire one-liners, surreal imaginative flights of fancy, use of fanciful words like “tattyfilarious” and marathon stand-up shows. Even in his 80s, Mr. Dodd’s shows often ran three to four hours. In the 1960s he held the Guinness world record for the longest joke-telling session: 1,500 jokes in three-and-ahalf hours.

His signature prop was a tickling stick — a sort of comedy feather duster — and he was often joined by colorfully clad, diminutive companions known as the Diddy Men.

Holmes said Mr. Dodd “was one of the last music hall greats.”

“With Ken gone, the lights have been turned out in the world of variety,” he said.

His 1965 song “Tears” was the third-best-selling single of the decade in Britain, surpassed only by The Beatles’ “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”