Spike Milligan

SPIKE MILLIGAN d2002. Actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and soldier of Irish and English parentage and Irish nationality. His early life was spent in India where he was born. The majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He disliked his first name and began to call himself "Spike" after hearing a band on Radio Luxembourg. He became the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters. He wrote and edited many books including ; Puckoon and his seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War (beginning with Adolf Hitler My Part in His Downfall). He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse ; much of his poetry was written for children including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After his success with the ground-breaking British radio programme the Goon Show, he translated this success to television with Q5 (a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python). The Prince of Wales was a fan and when Milligan received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Comedy Awards in 1994, the Prince sent a congratulatory message (to be read out on live TV). The comedian interrupted the message to call the Prince a "little grovelling bastard". He later faxed the prince saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?". He died of kidney failure aged 83 in 2002.