ShirlGirl

"Married a longtime fan"! Hey, I missed out on Stewart Granger, maybe there's still some hope for me with Richard Todd....?

Windthrop

He is still sharing his house with his ex-wife.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

john audley

Debatable of course but in my view Terry Thomas was the very greatest of comedy actors with perfect timing. A terrible end to such a wonderful man who, no doubt, was grossly underpaid like so many great actors of the past unlike the obscene amounts demanded by some of todays 'stars' who come nowhere near the past brilliance.

'You should be kind to us normals, there are not many of us left you know'!

Windthrop

He was very highly paid by the standards of the day - Richard Briers (his cousin) said at one point in the 50s TT had £3 million in the Bank. I don't know how you would inflation adjust that to current money but it would be at least £100 million by todays standards I would think. TT was undone by continuing to spend lavishly when his health was failing and the work was drying up and the presence of alot of hangers on. He was helped at the end by friends and fans who helped him out by raising money at a charity bash.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

oxfam1uk

Gosh, what a depressing subject for discussion !

I too had heard that Bernard Miles was bankrupt towards the end of his life. He had apparently spent a lot of his money keeping the Mermaid Theatre in East London going.

A benefit concert was organised for him there, a few years before his death.

My conclusion from all the above comments ? Don't go into showbiz, and if you do make sure you stay married for the whole of your life - it's the best form of Social Security !

Steve Crook

Inflation hasn't been quite that high from the 1950s to now.
If you use the Purchasing Power - What was it worth site then that shows that £3m in 1950 would be worth £74m today and £3m in 1959 would be worth £50m today.

But that's still quite a sizeable nest egg and you'd have to work hard to spend it all over a few years

Steve

Mark O

Heinz Burt, better known as just Heinz, appearing in 60's Musical films such as 'Live it up' spent his final years a broken man in every way, living alone in a rented flat in the town of Eastleigh, near Southampton, and died of Motor Neurone disease, though a road has been named after him on an Industrial estate 'Heinz Burt Close', plus after Heinz's death a concert was organised to raise funds for his Mother.....

Mark

Marky B

Richard O'Sullivan.


Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Mark O

I am surprised.......we are talking about Richard 'Man about the house/Robins nest' O'Sullivan, aren't we?

Just checked his IMDB page and he's living in an Actors retirement home, I wonder if it's the one in the north-west London suburb of Northwood that has been mentioned on another thread

Mark

Windthrop

He went off the rails completely when Tessa Wyatt dumped him. He began drinking very heavily and suffered a stroke in his mid 50s and went into an actors retirement home. Very sad - he was an ITV fixture for nearly 20 years. He turned up on This Is Your Life looking like a tramp.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

yorkist

Iam sure I read somewhere that TT lost a lot of money when he invested in a pig business in Spain,another one who lost a lot of money in this venture was George Sanders who later committed suicide.



Yorkist

Dame Starry

Richard O'Sullivan's in Brinsworth House in Twickenham, Middlesex.

YDSL x.

batman

Sanders didn't commit suicide 'cos the pig business, but 'cos he was 'bored'. A contributing factor to his state of mind was the death of Benita Hulme in 1967, whom he adored. Although he married again, to Magda Gabor, he was very unhappy. After their divorce he took up with a very dubious Spanish lady, she persuaded him to sell his house in Spain which he immediately realised was a big mistake. He committed suicide two days later.

His suicide note read ....

"Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."

Bats.

Windthrop

TT may well have lost money in that but it was principally hangers on that helped bleed him dry. The last films TT is reputed to have made were a series of soft-porn epics made at his house on a video camera. They have never, mercifully, seen that light of day.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

christoph404

We possibly should cross reference this thread with the discussion we had recently about crippling tax charges in the 1970s!!...( 73% rising to 83% and then 98%)...that must have left a few people skint!.... I believe Peter Wyngarde was made bankrupt twice in the 70s by the friendly IR!.....