|
Malcolm Hardee (5 January 1950 – 31 January 2005) was an English comedian, author, comedy club proprietor, compère, agent, manager and "amateur sensationalist". His high reputation among his peers rests on his outrageous publicity stunts and on the help and advice he gave to successful British alternative comedians early in their careers, acting as "godfather to a generation of comic talent in the 1980s". Fellow comic Rob Newman called him "a hilarious, anarchic, living legend; a millennial Falstaff",〔Hardee, Malcolm: "I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake" (pub Ebury Press, 1996), pre-title page〕 while Stewart Lee wrote that "Malcolm Hardee is a natural clown who in any decent country would be a national institution"〔 and Arthur Smith described him as "a South London Rabelais"〔 and claimed that "everything about Malcolm, apart from his stand-up act, was original". Though an accomplished comic, Hardee was arguably more highly regarded as a "character", a compère and talent-spotting booker at his own clubs, particularly The Tunnel Club in Greenwich, South East London, which gave vital and early exposure to up-and-coming comedians during the early years of British alternative comedy. In its obituary, ''The Times'' opined that "throughout his life he maintained a fearlessness and an indifference to consequences" and one journalist claimed: "To say that he has no shame is to drastically exaggerate the amount of shame that he has".〔 In a publicity quote printed in Hardee's autobiography ''I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake'', Arthur Smith wrote that Hardee had "led his life as though for the perfect autobiography and now he has paid himself the compliment of writing it."〔 ==Early life== Hardee was born in Lewisham, South East London, near the River Thames, and came from a long line of lightermen〔 who earned their living on tugs pulling barges on the river. He was the eldest son of Frank and Joan Hardee, spent his first two years in an orphanage while his mother was in hospital with tuberculosis〔 and was educated at three South East London schools – St Stephen's Church of England primary, Colfe's School, and Sedgehill comprehensive.〔 Expelled from all three, he drifted into petty crime〔 – stealing Coca-Cola from a local bottling plant, burgling a pawnbrokers and setting fire to a Sunday school piano because he wanted to see "holy smoke".〔 He served prison sentences for cheque fraud, burglary and escaping custody; in 1967, he escaped from Gaynes Hall Borstal dressed as a monk.〔 He also had convictions for arson and once infamously stole a Rolls Royce〔 which he believed belonged to British cabinet minister Peter Walker. (Walker later wrote to Hardee after reading about this widely reported story and denied it had been his car.)〔Hardee, Malcolm: "I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake" (pub Ebury Press, 1996), page 65〕 Hardee decided to turn to showbusiness as a way of staying out of trouble, saying: "There are only two things you can do when you come out of prison and you want immediate employment. You can either be a minicab driver or you can go into showbusiness"〔 and "Prison is like mime or juggling – a tragic waste of time".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Malcolm Hardee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|