Product Description

With his sly little moustache, broad gap-toothed grin, garish waistcoats and ostentatious cigarette holder, Terry-Thomas was known as an absolute bounder, both onscreen and off. Graham McCann's hugely entertaining biography celebrates the life and career of a very English rascal. Born in 1911 into an ordinary suburban family, Thomas Terry Hoar-Stevens set about transforming himself at a very early age into a dandy and a gadabout. But he did not put the finishing touches to his persona until the mid-1950s with his groundbreaking TV comedy series How Do You View?, a forerunner of The Goon Show and Monty Python. Terry-Thomas went on to carve out a long and lucrative career in America, appearing on TV alongside Judy Garland, Bing Crosby and Lucille Ball, and in Hollywood movies with Jack Lemmon, Rock Hudson and Doris Day. He became every American's idea of a mischievous English gent. After a long battle with Parkinson's disease, he died in 1990 in comparative obscurity, but his influence lives on. Basil Brush was a polyester tribute to Terry-Thomas, and comedians including Vic Reeves and Paul Whitehouse hail T-T as a role model. 'Dandyism is the product of a bored society,' D'Aurevilly observed. Terry-Thomas cocked a snook at the dull sobriety of post-war Britain with his sly humour. As he would say himself: 'Good show!' Graham McCann is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Spike & Co., Dad's Army, Frankie Howerd, Morecambe & Wise and Cary Grant. He is one of Britain's foremost writers on entertainment. He lives in Cambridge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16579 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
`highly readable' --The Guardian, September 20, 2008

Review
`fluid and engaging'

Review
`moving and fascinating book'

Customer Reviews

Jolly Good Show!
Terry-Thomas was one of those actors who seemed not simply to create a public persona for himself but actually BECOME that person in private as well. Although he grew up in an 'ordinary' middle class family in Finchley (Richard Briers was his second cousin), he became someone completely different through a sheer act of will. He dressed like a dandy, acted like a 'toff' and spoke like a character out of PG Wodehouse. And he had a fantastically lush and successful life until, tragically, illness took its toll. In this beauty of a biography, Graham McCann treats "T-T" with great warmth and respect, although he doesn't ignore the flaws, excesses and the odd 'absolute stinker' of a film choice! We get to hear about the pranks, the gambles, the crises and the triumphs, with some truly hilarious anecdotes (and not just in the main body of the text, either - remember to glance through the notes section at the end to see delightful little 'extras' about, for example, Terry's battles with the builders who were renovating his house and the day Peter Jones discovered that his fellow actor was sporting special 'bespoke' underpants!). The great period as one of the Boulting Brothers' key characters, and the 'fun' era as a Hollywood celebrity, are covered with care and good insight, as are the years as a Briton abroad in Ibiza, and then you are moved close to tears by the sensitive account of how Terry-Thomas was broken down by Parkinson's disease. It's all very well-researched but very brightly, engagingly presented, and a fitting tribute to one of the greats of British cinema, TV and comedy.

Biography versus autobiography
I recently bought two books on characters who could be thought to have significant similarities,including one of their catchphrases, "Hello", and both living and working in roughly the same era. These were the autobiography of Lesley Philips,entitled "Hello" and "Bounder!". Fortunately I read "Hello" first and then "Bounder", so that I finished on a high!

The following are some of the positive aspects of "Bounder!", and possibly of many biographies over autobiographies:
There is a wealth of detail showing meticulous research, culled from a wide range of sources.
Relationships with significant characters who appear in both books, e.g. the Boulting Brothers, are seen and recorded from a detached viewpoint.
The innovative and imaginative contribution to different developing and international media (T-T in radio, fledgling UK TV and film)is much better documented.

Finally, the book is just a delight to read, through reading it T-T will be remembered by me as not just an entertainer that I enjoyed on radio and film (I missed the TV) but as an incredibly talented and creative artist, a true Alpha male, with all of an Alpha's strengths and weaknesses. His illness and death were tragic both for him and his family/friends but even in that he was a pioneer through publicising and raising the profile of Parkinsons.
His irony resounds throughout the book, as he commented he was, after all, Parkinson's first guest on his chat show.

T-T brought vividly to life
This is a terrific biography. As with his books on Dad's Army and Morecambe and Wise, McCann manages to write an informative yet lively book on the inimitable Terry-Thomas. He quite properly highlights T-T's true genius as a comic actor, whilst superbly capturing his zany antics and showbiz friendships through the 60s and 70s, and onto his sad demise living and dying in penury. A great read.