Spike Milligan(1918-2002)
- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Spike was born an 'Army Brat', the son of an Irish Captain in the
British Raj in India. Educated in a series of Roman Catholic schools in
India and at Lewisham Polytechnic in England, he spent his formative
years playing the fool and playing the trumpet in local jazz bands.
He joined the British Army himself (under protest if you believe his
auto-biogs) as a conscript at the outbreak of WWII. He served in the
Royal Artillery as Gunner Milligan through the North African and
Italian campaigns. He got a bit too close to an exploding shell and was
hospitalised with shell-shock. On his escape from army life he started
his "real" work as an author and humourist.
Most famous for 'The Goon Show' with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe (and originally
Michael Bentine), these radio shows are commonly regarded as re-writing the
rules of comedy (even before Monty Python). However under the pressure
of writing all the scripts he suffered a breakdown and became a
clinical manic-depressive.
He was fondly regarded as the last of the great British eccentrics and
had written a wealth of comic poetry mainly for children, a few novels
and his multi-volume auto-biography. Spike was also a keen (fanatical?)
environmental campaigner.
British Raj in India. Educated in a series of Roman Catholic schools in
India and at Lewisham Polytechnic in England, he spent his formative
years playing the fool and playing the trumpet in local jazz bands.
He joined the British Army himself (under protest if you believe his
auto-biogs) as a conscript at the outbreak of WWII. He served in the
Royal Artillery as Gunner Milligan through the North African and
Italian campaigns. He got a bit too close to an exploding shell and was
hospitalised with shell-shock. On his escape from army life he started
his "real" work as an author and humourist.
Most famous for 'The Goon Show' with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe (and originally
Michael Bentine), these radio shows are commonly regarded as re-writing the
rules of comedy (even before Monty Python). However under the pressure
of writing all the scripts he suffered a breakdown and became a
clinical manic-depressive.
He was fondly regarded as the last of the great British eccentrics and
had written a wealth of comic poetry mainly for children, a few novels
and his multi-volume auto-biography. Spike was also a keen (fanatical?)
environmental campaigner.