Benny Hill died alone

I grew up in the 1980s, and my first introduction to nudity may very well have been while I watched Benny Hill. My dad was an immigrant who didn’t speak much English, so he didn’t understand much of American television. But he understood Benny Hill.

What was there not to understand? His slapstick comedy involved slapping his diminutive bald friend across the head, looking up skirts of scantily clad women, tripping over things, and making funny faces. It may have been one of the few times I saw my father laughing out loud.

As a pre-teen, I always hoped to get some glimpse of nudity. This was before the days of online porn and cable TV. Later I would graduate to trying to see porn through the scrambled video on our black and white TV while playing with the antennas trying to get HBO just a little better.

As I grew older, I began appreciating Hill for his dialogues and song lyrics. The man was a comedic genius. He wasn’t Richard Pryor or George Carlin. He was different. Imagine a perverted British Bob Hope. That was Benny Hill.

Michael Jackson called Benny Hill the funniest comedian ever. Take that with a grain of salt, I guess. Hill was humbled to tears when in the 1970s he visited one of his comedic influences and idols, Charlie Chaplin, at Chaplin’s home only to discover the original British icon had a collection of all of Benny Hill’s videos.

But for all of Hill’s frivolity, Hill was totally different off screen. Everyone who ever worked with him said he was a complete gentleman, in contrast to the perverted characters he played on his shows. The changing of times and the onset of political correctness would put an end to Hill’s career in 1989, after over 33 years on TV. Hill’s treatment and portrayal of women wasn't considered funny anymore.

Hill took his firing hard. The show was all he had. He had never married - having been rejected at least twice proposing to different women. He also had no children. One can only imagine what it must have been like for Hill to suddenly have nobody at home and no job to distract him. That life was all he had known for over three decades - over half his life.

Hill turned to food. He once was in tip-top shape and had served in the British Army, but now gorged himself into an unhealthy, obese, nearly 70-year-old Ted Kennedy look alike. Depression can do that to you. So can living by yourself with little distractions. So can the thought that society had turned on him and now considered him a sexist pig. He felt ostracized.

Hill’s health would decline quickly after his firing in 1989. In February of 1992, Hill would suffer a heart attack and be told by doctors that he needed a heart bypass. Hill said no. He also refused to undergo kidney dialysis after suffering from kidney failure. Why? Hill was essentially allowing himself to die. Had he turned his back on life just like his fans had turned their collective backs on him?

He died of another heart attack less than two months later at the age of 68. It was a sad ending to the life of someone so adored by so many only a few years earlier. He died alone, sitting on his couch watching TV, surrounded by dirty dishes, papers, and videotapes strewn everywhere. Even sadder, he wasn’t discovered until two days after he died. For two full days, Benny Hill sat dead on his sofa without anyone noticing.

It is telling that Hill died only three years after being fired from his life work. Hill was understanding when he got fired by Thames Television but did say that “a little pat on the back would have been nice” after 22 years with the company.

How often do you see people die only a few years, months, or even weeks after they retire? My mother's health began declining almost immediately after she retired at the age of 71. Does it have to do with losing their purpose to life? Their identity?

I recently got let go from a job that I had worked for over 30 years as well, and, like Hill, never even got a pat on the back on my way out. Instead, I had to get a letter via registered mail saying they had decided to part ways with me after my family leave for grief had expired. No face-to-face meeting. No phone call. Not even a text message. That was a tough pill to swallow.

Some people would have turned to drugs and alcohol. Hill turned to food. I began drinking hard liquor for the first time in my life. Anything to numb the mental pain of being rejected, of feeling worthless.

Much like me, Hill was a “momma’s boy.” His mother was his everything. When she died, he didn’t shed a tear. His father was a hard-ass, yet when he died, Hill cried. Hill explained that he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral because he knew he loved her as much as he could, but he did cry at his father’s funeral because he felt he could have loved him more.

I had/have the same feelings towards my parents. I always believed I would cry at my mother’s funeral, but not at my father’s. My father is 88 and still alive (at last check). My mother was my life. Perhaps that is why I, like Hill, never married or had children. My mother passed away two years ago, and now that I think about it, I did not cry at her funeral. I remember trying to cry, but I couldn’t. Maybe I felt the same way Hill did. Actually, I know I did. I know I was the best son possible to my mother. I told her how much I loved her every day.

Great, now I am crying as I write this part. Where were these tears then?

My dad is a different story. He, too, was a hard ass. Maybe it is ironic that the only time I remember my father laughing hard was when he was watching Benny Hill, who never got the love from his dad. If I came home with 4 A’s and one A- when I was young, he would smack me with the belt for getting an A-. Never once do I remember him saying he was proud of me. So will I cry at his funeral? We shall see, if I don’t die first. Knowing him, he will probably outlive all of us - when no one would have bet that twenty years ago

The story of Benny Hill is sad to me, and it should be sad to everyone. Anytime anyone dies alone and it takes days before anyone even notices they are gone, it is tragic. Especially someone like Benny Hill who made so many people laugh and smile.