Angry thugs always end up blaming the Jews

David Hemmings at the time. He said: “It’s an old trick. It saves money on Musicians’ Union overtime and makes the audience think they’re getting something extra and unplanned. These old troupers know what they’re doing, don’t they?”

A trouper and a perfectionist, on The Generation Game, Bruce worked and reworked the games until they were absolutely right. In the dressing room, before a show, even as recently as Strictly, he was known to practise 80 spins on the spot to make sure he could keep his balance. He could be a tough taskmaster, but he was always kind. Yesterday, I bumped into a make-up lady who told me that when she had been working on You Bet, he turned up to her leaving do with a dozen red roses and made a speech. Not many of the big stars bother to do that sort of thing.

Look the part

Bruce was very dapper – he liked his clothes and he kept himself trim. To him, being stylishly dressed was part of what his career was about. I used to wear colourful jumpers on TV in the Eighties, and, teasingly, he warned me, “You are locking yourself into breakfast television dressed like that. If you want to be in showbusiness you have to look the business.” And he introduced me to his tailor in Leeds, who made the most beautiful suits.

Stay surprising

Bruce was fond of quoting Noël Coward, who used to say: “Keep coming out of a different hole.” By which he meant, be surprising. “If you keep doing the same show forever and ever, people will get tired of it.” His one big regret was that when he was at the peak of his powers in the Seventies and Eighties

‘He told me, if you want to be in showbusiness, you have to look the business’