Tony Hancock

British comedian Tony Hancock earned a reputation for his witty wordplay and his signature catchphrase “flippin’ kids.” His lifelong drive to perform stemmed from his father’s semi-professional singing and acting career, a man Hancock idolized so deeply that he later likened him to the majestic King Stag in Disney’s Bambi. Early attempts to emulate that example proved rocky; one of his first outings involved telling ribald jokes to a distinctly unreceptive crowd of soldiers and Sunday-school teachers. Enlisting with the RAF in 1942 changed his fortunes when he was selected for the Gang Shows, delivering a sanitized routine to entertain the troops.

After returning to civilian life, Hancock waited until 1951 for his real opportunity, joining the casts of the little-loved Happy-Go-Lucky and the hugely popular Educating Archie. Three years later he received Hancock’s Half Hour, which transferred to television in 1956 and ran through 1959. The success made him a major British star and gave him the leverage to enter feature films in the early 1960s, yet those pictures underperformed. When he tried television again, his work was eclipsed by Steptoe and Son, a series written by two of his former collaborators.

Prone to harsh self-judgment and crushed by his inability to regain preeminence, Hancock descended into alcoholism, an affliction he described as the means to “send away the tigers” clawing at his back. In 1968 Australian television commissioned a thirteen-part series from him; he relocated that year but completed only three episodes before taking his own life on June 24. His suicide note read, “Things just went wrong too many times.” Decades later his stature endured: a statue was erected in his birthplace of Birmingham in 2001, and the U.K. alt-rock band Manic Street Preachers titled their 2007 album Send Away the Tigers after his phrase for drinking.