Tony Hendra
Actor, writer and comedian BORN JULY 10, 1941 – DIED MARCH 4, 2021, AGED 79
SATIRIST Tony Hendra co-created Spitting Image but was best known as bumbling band manager Ian Faith in rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.
He began writing and performing comedy while at Cambridge University where he joined Footlights and met John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim BrookeTaylor among others.
But his career took off after he moved to American with his comedy partner Nick Ullett. He held top roles at National Lampoon and Spy magazines and helped launch the careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase by giving the unknowns roles in Lemmings stage show, a National Lampoon spin-off.
In 1984 he co-created and co-wrote Spitting Image but was ousted after six shows.
He was caught up in controversy in 2004 when his daughter Jessica accused him of child abuse, which he strongly denied.
She approached the New York Times, which
published an article, and she repeated the allegations in her 2005 memoir.
No criminal charges were ever brought.
Hendra was born in Willesden, Hertfordshire, and attended St Albans School where Stephen Hawking was a classmate.
Aged 14, he had sex with a married Catholic woman. When her husband found out Hendra was taken to a priest to be “saved”.
Over the next 40 years his visits to this priest, Benedictine monk Joseph Warrilow, had a great influence on Hendra and in 2005 he wrote bestseller Father Joe, recounting their friendship.
He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He is survived by his wife Carla Meisner and their three children, as well as Jessica and another child from his first marriage.