Benny Hill

By: Greg Rowland
January 21, 2010

Although he is often written out of comedy history, BENNY HILL (1924-92) was a truly great clown, whom Charlie Chaplin venerated as a master of physical comedy, and whose brilliant verbal shtick echoed the easy mania of Sid Caesar. Today, however, Hill is mostly remembered for the smut. He was sent into this world to take the weight of English sexual anxiety upon his flabby shoulders; his work reminds us what happens to sexual desire when viewed through a perfectly tempered kaleidoscope of silly faces and pure anxiety. Every smutty English snicker, smirk, off-colour comment, blue gag, purple patch, point, pout, nudge, smudge, fizzle-plop snort, wink, blink, swivel-eyed glance, angle-neck sideways opprobrium-locater, and inverted stop-motion violet-bud-opening face-shrinker effect was to be found under his imperious, yet cherubic command. For Hill, perversity was creativity — and a cigar was never just a cigar.

***

Each day, HILOBROW pays tribute to one of our favorite high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes on that person’s birthday.

READ MORE about men and women born between the New Gods Generation (1914-23) and the Postmodernist Generation (1924-33).

READ MORE HiLo Hero shout-outs.

SUBSCRIBE to HiLo Hero updates via Facebook.

SHARE this post, by clicking on the toolbar below.

Categories

Cuspers, Haw-Haw, HiLo Heroes