Marty Feldman

Leaving school at 15, Feldman worked at the Dreamland funfair in Margate,[9] but had dreams of a career as a jazz trumpeter, and performed in the first group in which tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes was a member.[12] Feldman joked that he was 'the world's worst trumpet player'.[12] By the age of 20, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

Although his early performing career was undistinguished, Feldman became part of a comedy act — Morris, Marty and Mitch — who made their first television appearance on the BBC series Showcase in April 1955.[1] Later in the decade, Feldman worked on the scripts for Educating Archie in both its radio and television incarnations, with Ronald Chesney and later, Ronald Wolfe.

In 1954, Feldman met Barry Took while both were working as performers, and with Took, he eventually formed an enduring writing partnership which lasted until 1974.[1] They wrote a few episodes of The Army Game (1960) and the bulk of Bootsie and Snudge (1960–62), both situation comedies made by Granada Television for the ITV network. For BBC Radio they wrote Round the Horne (1964–67), their best-remembered comedy series, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams.[9] (The last season of Round the Horne, in 1968, was written by others.) This work placed Feldman and Took 'in the front rank of comedy writers', according to Denis Norden.[9]

Feldman then became the chief writer and script editor on The Frost Report (1966–67). With John Law, he co-wrote the much-shown "Class" sketch, in which John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height, suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker) and working class (Corbett).[9]

The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show raised Feldman's profile as a performer. The other three participants (future Monty Python members Graham Chapman and John Cleese; and future star of The Goodies, Tim Brooke-Taylor) needed a fourth cast member, and had Feldman in mind.[9] In a sketch broadcast on 1 March 1967, Feldman's character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) regarding a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. His character in At Last the 1948 Show was often called Mr. Pest, according to Cleese.[13] Feldman was co-author - along with Chapman, Cleese and Brooke-Taylor - of the sketch "Four Yorkshiremen", which was written for At Last the 1948 Show.[9]

Feldman was given his own series on the BBC, Marty, in 1968;[9] it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers.[9] Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was retitled It's Marty (this title being retained for the DVD release of the series).

Promotional photo for The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, 1972

In 1971, Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the obscenity trial for Oz magazine.[9] He would not swear on the Bible, choosing instead to affirm.[9] Throughout his testimony, he mocked the judge after it was implied that Feldman had no religion because he was not Christian.[9] By this point, preparation had begun on The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1971–72), a television series co-produced by Associated Television (ATV) in the UK and the American Broadcasting Company, and which was produced at ATV's Elstree Studios, near London. This vehicle lasted for just one series.[14]

In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson produced a short BBC sketch series for Feldman titled Marty Back Together Again — a reference to reports about the star's health — but it never captured the impact of the earlier series. Marty proved popular enough with an international audience (the first series winning the Golden Rose Award at Montreux) to launch a film career. Feldman's first feature film role was in Every Home Should Have One (1970).[9] He spent time in Soho jazz clubs, as he found a parallel between 'riffing' in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz.[9]

On film, in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974), Feldman played Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore", a comic response to Gene Wilder's claim that 'it's pronounced FRONK-EN-SCHTEEN'). Many lines in Young Frankenstein were improvised. Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part.[9] Feldman's performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show.

In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Barbara Bouchet in the sex comedy 40 Gradi All'Ombra del Lenzuolo (Sex With A Smile). He later appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Brooks' Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He also guest-starred in "Arabian Nights", an episode of The Muppet Show in which he was teamed up with several Sesame Street characters, especially Cookie Monster, with whom he shared a playful cameo comparing their eyes side by side.

During the course of his career, Feldman recorded two albums, Marty (1968) and I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released in 1971 as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs on his second album were written by Denis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies).[15] It was later released as a CD in 2007.