The original Tony Hancock website - since October 1995.
Tony Hancock. 1924 - 1968
FROM THE INDEPENDENT.
BBC bosses wrote off Tony Hancock as a 'moody perfectionist obsessed with money' The gloomy occupant of 23 Railway Cuttings was in real life one of the highest-earning performers of his day. But 50 years after the first broadcasts that endeared him to a nation, the extent of his creator's insecurity is still being revealed, writes James Morrison, 31 October 2004
Tony Hancock, the comic genius who became one of British television's most iconic stars, so infuriated his BBC bosses with his spiralling demands that they privately branded him a "moody perfectionist" who was obsessed with money.
A confidential memo, published for the first time this week, reveals that the BBC did everything in its power to force Hancock to sign a "golden handcuffs" deal designed to prevent him defecting to ITV or the cinema. His refusal to do so left the corporation incandescent, according to the note, which is reproduced in a new book celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hancock's Half Hour, the radio series that launched his curmudgeonly alter ego.
In an exasperated moan to the BBC's then controller of programmes, the head of light entertainment, Tom Sloan, wrote on 13 April, 1962: "Hancock is a moody perfectionist with a great interest in money and no sense of loyalty to the corporation." He added that nothing short of handing over entire "production control" to Hancock and paying him an unprecedented £150,000 - the equivalent of £2m today - for a further 13 episodes of his TV sitcom would be enough to persuade him to stay with the BBC.
At the time of the memo Hancock had made some 160 programmes for the BBC, 80 of them for radio, and was one of British TV's highest-paid stars, earning up to £1,750 an episode - £23,000 in today's money. But this wasn't enough to keep the star, who preferred to sign contracts on a series-by-series basis, exclusively with the corporation. By the early 1960s, Hancock had become increasingly restless there, recording his celebrated final BBC1 run - whose episodes included the classic The Blood Donor - in 1961, before switching to ITV. He was also anxious to break on to the big screen, frustrated by the growing movie profile of his Hancock sidekick Sid James, star of the Carry On films.
The memo was discovered by author Richard Webber in BBC archives while researching his new commemorative volume, Fifty Years of Hancock's Half Hour, which is published on Thursday. Its description of Hancock as a money-obsessed control freak has provoked a mixed reaction among those who knew him best, including his long-time collaborators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, creators of his most celebrated character, the lugubrious resident of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam.
Simpson dismissed Mr Sloan's criticism of Hancock's refusal to sign an exclusive BBC deal as "sour grapes", while Galton said the actor was after the chance to become "an international comic" - not more money.
Speaking from his London home, he said: "I don't think he was at all interested in going to ITV, but into the film industry. It wasn't a 'star' thing either ... He wasn't any more interested in money than anyone else."
But Jeff Hammonds, a founder member of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, points out that the actor was known for his love of big houses and fast cars - one of which was crashed by his first wife, Cicely, putting Hancock in hospital with two black eyes.
Among the other correspondences published in the book is a letter from Sid James to Tom Sloan, in which he passionately affirms his commitment to Hancock - despite his own flourishing film career. In the letter, written in January 1958, he writes: "I think I'd rather die than not be in it! Hancock's Half Hour has done me the world of good. All that remains then is to sort out the dates and the dough and we're away."
The actor's loyalty was not rewarded. Within two years, at the request of Hancock, who was increasingly fearful of being seen as one half of a double-act, James had been dropped. Galton said he and Simpson had agreed with Hancock's reservations that the format was in danger of becoming like a new Morecambe and Wise Show, but conceded: "He [Sid] was quite devastated."
Out of respect for the actor, the pair wrote a follow-up series, Citizen James, in which he starred as a Soho spiv, but its TV run was short-lived. Publication of the memos comes as Hancock's most recent biographer has told The Independent on Sunday that the actor's suicide could have been averted, or at least delayed, if the producers of the show he was working on at the time had told him it was to be recommissioned for a second series. Cliff Goodwin believes that, when Hancock took an overdose of sleeping pills and vodka on 25 June 1968, aged 44, he was in a deep depression about the lacklustre quality of Hancock Down Under, a comeback show he was filming in Australia and which he had become convinced was about to be axed.
Mr Goodwin, who first aired his views in his recent biography, When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock, said: "On that final day of shooting - and unknown to Hancock - executives at Channel 7 decided that, however bad the episodes they already had in the can, it was worth taking a chance and commissioning a second series. The producer had been informed. Most of the crew knew. But no one thought to tell their star.
"I'm not claiming it would have stopped Hancock killing himself, which I don't believe he meant to do, but I'm sure it would have eased his agonies long enough to carry him on for another month or year [and] maybe even given him the confidence to return to England and make yet another new start."
His suggestion that the alcoholic manic-depressive might have lived longer had he known his series was to go on has been dismissed by its producer and director, Eddie Joffe. He says its star was aware that 10 more episodes had been commissioned - even if he had not known about a second series.