Irrepressible entertainer delighted millions
Sir Bruce Forsyth, British entertainer, b Middlesex, England, February 22, 1928; m Penny Calvert (diss.), Anthea Redfern (diss.), Wilnelia Merced; 6d, 1s; d Surrey, England, August 18, 2017, aged 89.
Sir Bruce Forsyth, the comedian and game show host was one of the most enduring stars of British television; in shows such as The
Generation Game and his late career triumph, Strictly Come
Dancing, his irrepressible, slightly camp enthusiasm won over millions of viewers and made him a exemplar of wholesome family entertainment.
Forsyth was quick-witted, a coiner of instantly recognisable catchphrases, comfortably – and somehow benignly – insulting to his audiences, and capable of persuading people that, however ridiculous the business in hand, it was all good, clean fun.
To critics and intellectual snobs who claimed that the BBC’s
Generation Game, with its conveyor belt of prizes and messy practical contests, made fools of people, he replied: ‘‘I see how people feel after the show – they’re full of elation. They’ll remember that night for the rest of their lives.’’
Forsyth’s great strength was that he was never afraid to look absurd. Few would have got away with his famous pose parodying Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker . He was not only happy to be the ‘‘king of corn’’, he was demonstrably proud of it. .
Yet despite becoming by the time of Strictly a well-liked national figure who was, as he put it, ‘‘the most important game show host on television’’, Forsyth went through a period of mid-career frustration, when he was desperate for the kind of global popularity enjoyed by his hero Sammy Davis Jr.
The Generation Game, which he began hosting in 1971 (he also sang the theme song, Life is the name of
the game), was supremely successful, with, at its most popular, viewing figures of 26 million. After seven series, however, Forsyth decided to leave the BBC, and his career began to resemble a morality tale about over-ambition.
In his search for international fame, he allowed himself to be persuaded into a series of spectaculars in the United States called Bruce on Broadway. But Americans had not heard of him, and could not understand why he kept saying ‘‘Nice to see you – to see you nice’’.
The show received poor reviews, one critic describing Forsyth’s ‘‘manic performance’’ as ‘‘like watching Uriah Heep on speed’’.
By the late 1980s Forsyth was living in relative obscurity in what he described as his ‘‘retirement home’’ on the Costa del Sol. He had married again; his third wife, Wilnelia Merced, a Puerto Rican, had won the Miss World title in 1975 and was 25 years his junior. In 2004 his career would be spectacularly revitalised when he was asked by the BBC to present their new Saturday night ‘‘procelebrity’’ ballroom-dancing show,
Strictly Come Dancing. By now 76, he jumped at the chance.
It made for entertaining viewing and Strictly regularly attracted 10 million viewers. Forsyth found a new family audience and a fresh generation of younger fans who would watch the show before a night out. Once again viewers were treated to his elegant little shoe shuffles and mildly risque asides.
Live performances every Saturday night were, Forsyth admitted, ‘‘very, very strenuous’’, and after 11 series he announced that he was leaving Strictly ,in future to appear only in one-off specials. It was, he said, ‘‘a beautiful, lovely show’’ and he revealed that when he told co-host Tess Daly about his imminent departure he had felt ‘‘like a boyfriend breaking up with his girl’’.
Bruce Joseph Forsyth Johnson was born in Edmonton, north London, on February 22, 1928, the youngest son of a garage owner. Both his parents were members of the Salvation Army, but it was when they took their seven-yearold son to a pantomime at the Wood Green Odeon that his ‘‘love affair with showbusiness’’ began.
Aged 10 he was travelling two hours a day to attend tap-dancing lessons, and at 14 he left school to tour with a concert party. Billed as ‘‘Boy Bruce, The Mighty Atom’’, he wore a sequin-covered suit (‘‘made by my mum’’).
In 1951, after two years’ National Service in the RAF, Forsyth gave himself five years to become famous. ‘‘I didn’t want to be a frustrated old pro,’’ he remembered. ‘‘Luckily I got the job at the Palladium with only a year of my five left.’’
That was in 1955, when he took over from Tommy Trinder as compere of the hugely popular television variety show Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Forsyth was an even greater hit with audiences, who liked his somewhat badgering style. The show comprised comics, dancers, a big star and Beat The Clock, a game for members of the audience in which the competitors had to perform various absurd tasks while being heckled by the host.
It was during these shows at the Palladium that Forsyth introduced three catchphrases that stayed with him throughout his career: ‘‘I’m in charge’’; ‘‘Nice to see you – to see you nice’’; and ‘‘Didn’t he do well?’’ When Sunday Night at the London Palladium came to an end in 1965, Forsyth starred in his own TV show, which in turn led to The Generation Game.
During the making of the series he began to gain a reputation as something of a prima donna, one crew member complaining: ‘‘If somebody asks him something and he thinks it’s unimportant, we all suffer.’’
He became increasingly superstitious, confessing that before he went in front of the cameras he would sort through packets of boiled sweets, throwing away all the green ones: ‘‘I never eat the green ones before a show.’’ He also began to practise a form of meditation before every performance.
After his second marriage ended, despite various setbacks, Forsyth was still showing the boundless energy that had made his previous game shows so engaging and successful. By 1983 he had his glamorous third wife – who was the same age as his daughter – and had begun to sport an ill-disguised toupee.
He became the butt of jokes by Jimmy Tarbuck and Bob Monkhouse, who mocked the age difference between the Forsyths: ‘‘Brucie has to go to bed early these days to get his wife up for school the next day’’ was one example.
By 1990 he was back on British television screens in a low-budget vehicle called Takeover Bid. The object of this game was for contestants to win prizes and then to have them taken away by other contestants (‘‘I’ll bid my musical toilet roll holder for his Ronald Reagan puppet, Bruce’’). Despite exhorting the audience to ‘‘be greedy, we want you to be mean and nasty’’, Forsyth softened the blow when contestants lost their gifts – the unlucky losers went home with a ‘‘Brucie Bonus, out of my own pocket’’.
In his sixties, Forsyth appeared to go into overdrive, hosting mny more shows. In 2000 he compe` red Tonight at the London Palladium, based on the show’s original format.
He was appointed OBE in 1998, advanced to CBE in 2006, and knighted in 2011. Forsyth presented Strictly Come
Dancing well into his eighties; it was said that he kept fit thanks to a daily half-hour regime of Tibetan stretches and a flask of Complan which he kept backstage. In 2015 he underwent keyhole surgery after doctors discovered he had two aneurysms following a fall at his home.
Forsyth’s great strength was that he was never afraid to look absurd.