{"id":3446,"date":"2020-12-01T07:59:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T07:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=3446"},"modified":"2020-12-01T08:06:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T08:06:43","slug":"des-oconnor-the-bloke-round-the-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/12\/01\/des-oconnor-the-bloke-round-the-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"DES O\u00b4CONNOR \u2013 the bloke round the corner."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DES O\u00b4CONNOR \u2013 the bloke round the corner.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Des O\u00b4Connor<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Des O\u2019Connor has died at the age of 88 after a live entertainment and television career which spanned six decades and saw him host some of the country\u2019s most popular programmes. The presenter, singer and comedian died on Saturday 14th<\/sup> November 2020, after a fall at home, according to his long-time agent Pat Lake-Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cIt is with great sorrow that I confirm that Des O\u2019Connor passed away yesterday. He had been admitted to hospital just over a week ago, following a fall at his home in Buckinghamshire,\u00b4 she said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4He was recovering well and had been in great spirits, visited by his family \u2013 in accordance with hospital lockdown regulations \u2013 and looking forward to going home. Unfortunately his condition suddenly deteriorated and he drifted peacefully away in his sleep.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mr. O\u2019Connor (as he was always addressed on tv by his flat-capped, frenetic,  fellow comic Jack Douglas, right) is survived by his fourth wife, Jodie, and their son, Adam, along with his four daughters, Karin, TJ, Samantha and Kristina from previous marriages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A multi-talented performer, O\u2019Connor rose up, from being a Butlin\u00b4s entertainer, through Britain\u2019s variety show tradition to tour widely around the UK while in his twenties. When he landed a big break by being given his own eponymous variety show on ITV in 1963, he became an instant household name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that he was rarely off British screens, hosting the long-running chat show Des O\u2019Connor Tonight and presenting quiz programmes such as Take Your Pick and Name That Tune as well as having a brief stint in charge of Countdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>He also had a successful parallel career as a singer. He was a crooner, putting out unfashionable albums that, nevertheless, consistently charted well. He once reflected on his status, telling how \u00b4a little old lady\u00b4 came up to him at the stage door one day. According to O\u2019Connor, she offered him \u00a35 and asked him to send her his new record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4But you can get it for \u00a33 in the shop,\u00b4 he said. \u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She replied: \u00b4But the last time I went into the shop and asked for a Des O\u2019Connor LP they said, \u2018You\u2019re kidding.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Comedy duo Eric Morecambe (right) and Ernie Wise (left) with comedian and singer Des O’Connor for the Christmas special of the BBC television series ‘The Morecambe and Wise Show’, December 4th 1975. (Photo by Don Smith\/Radio Times via Getty Images)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He embraced his status as the butt of jokes, appearing regularly on The Morecambe and Wise Show throughout the nineteen seventies, even as Eric Morecambe regularly constantly insulted his comedic ability and singing voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality he was friends with the duo, who he had met while performing in Hull some twenty years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Quite a lot of his insults Eric aimed at me, I wrote myself,\u00b4 Des told the Daily Mail in 2014<\/a>. \u00b4Things like, \u2018Des O\u2019Connor\u2019s a self-made man. Well, it\u2019s nice of him to take the blame.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in London\u2019s East End in 1932, O\u2019Connor was born the son of a refuse collector and a cleaner. He had rickets as a child which forced him to use a wheelchair and he had to relearn to walk aged seven. He was evacuated to Northampton during the second world war, where he briefly played for Northampton Town football club\u2019s reserve team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following national service in the RAF he decided to become an entertainer and spent years on the road perfecting his act. He worked as a Butlin\u2019s Red Coat and as the comedian at London\u2019s Windmill theatre \u2013 where he accepted most customers were there for the displays of nudity rather than to hear his jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor loved being on stage with a live audience, though, and continued to tour until his final years, regularly selling out venues across the UK. Lake-Smith recalled him saying that \u00b4the sound of laughter was like the sound of heavenly music\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Des & co-host Mel<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He had an unexpected late-career revival with the ITV daytime chat show Today With Des and Mel (Sykes, the Boddington\u00b4s girl) during the mid-2000s  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On hearing of his death Mel paid tribute to her former co-host:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Des had the softest hands of anyone I ever met and the kindest of hearts. He had talent in every fibre of his being and was stubborn as a mule. He was the full ticket as a friend and colleague\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen he chose me to be his co-host on the Today show it was one of the greatest days of my professional life. It was an education and a privilege to work with him for the years that followed. We worked long hours but always laughed lots, not least because when it was show-time he would always tell me I looked like [a] robber\u2019s dog!\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even at the end of his career he did not take himself too seriously. In 2017 he appeared on Harry Hill\u2019s Alien Fun Capsule<\/a>, where he subjected himself to a game trying to recognise the difference between a chipolata and a regular sausage, in tribute to an anecdote O\u2019Connor told in his autobiography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Can you get my agent on the phone?\u00b4 O\u2019Connor asked to laughter from the audience, while trying to tell the difference between two meat products with a box strapped to his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time in my own life when I was into The Byrds and The Monkees I would be embarrassed to find myself humming a familiar tune on the way to school. Usually, it would be a gritty Byrds track or at the very least a piece of pure pop by The Monkees,\u2026 but just occasionally it would be the lines of dicka dum dum, which was O\u00b4Connor\u00b4s big hit of those times, or his 1,2,3 O\u00b4Leary, although his best-selling number one was Careless Hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Des was, of course, a very peripheral figure of my young teen years, but he was always relevant, and whilst his lines about \u00b4Bobbies on bicycles, two by two\u00b4 are sepia-toned and show us a kinder world, they still take me back to when I used to live in Northampton as a little boy. All I can remember about the place now is that we lived on Penryn Road, quite near to a big library and a park that had the tallest, fastest, most dangerous slide in the country, and in a time before there were cushioned-floor landings. But, you know what, that Des O\u00b4Connor fellow lived just round the corner. Nice bloke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We featured the Alvin Alley Dance Theatre in a post earlier this year. Check our archives later, but meanwhile you\u2019re invited to Ailey\u2019s Opening Night Virtual Benefit on Dec 2 at 7:30pm EST! Register today: bit.ly\/38DjsO2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then join us to watch it on our website, Facebook, or YouTube,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

featuring a 60th anniversary tribute Alvin Ailey\u2019s \u2018Revelations,\u2019 plus special guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This company gave the best live dance performance I have ever seen a few years ago the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, and it was of this show. Really, its not to be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A multi-talented performer, O\u2019Connor rose up, from being a Butlin\u00b4s entertainer, through Britain\u2019s variety show tradition to tour widely around the UK while in his twenties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3446"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3457,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions\/3457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}