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Leslie Crowther, CBE (6 February 1933, West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire – 29 September 1996, Bath) was an English comedian, actor and gameshow host.
[edit] BiographyLeslie Crowther was born in West Bridgford. In 1933 he was evacuated to a farm on the Isle of Bute in Scotland for three years, until 1943, when he moved back to Nottingham. Two years later, he moved to London with his parents, just after the war ended.[2] His father, Leslie Frederick Crowther, was also an actor. By coincidence, Crowther's father was an alcoholic, and died in January 1955, a few days after being injured in a car crash. Crowther had stage experience from the mid-1940s. Crowther attended Nottingham High School and Thames Valley Grammar School. He married Jean Stone on 27 March 1954. They had five children, including twins born in December 1954. One of his daughters, Liz, is an actress. His daughter Caroline was married to the late rock star Phil Lynott,[3] and his youngest son Nick worked in radio, presenting traffic and travel bulletins for AA Roadwatch based in Stanmore. He was a supporter of West Bromwich Albion F.C., and was particularly friendly with officials and players of the club during the Ron Atkinson era (late 1970s to early '80s). [edit] Television careerCrowther made a name for himself in television in the 1950s, with appearances as presenter of such programmes as The Black and White Minstrel Show, and later the long-running children's institution Crackerjack (with Peter Glaze) for the BBC, from 1960 to 1968. From the 1970s, Crowther also achieved fame as the face of Stork SB Margarine for which he appeared in a number of television commercials. In 1971 he made The Leslie Crowther Show, a comedy sketch show, with three older comics, Arthur English, Chic Murray and Albert Modley ("Eee it's grand to be daft!") as the internal "rep" company. In 1972 and 1973 he appeared in a television sitcom called My Good Woman with Richard Wilson, Sylvia Syms and Keith Barron. He also narrated two storytelling lps for children, Tallulah Supercat and "Tallulah and the Cat-Burglars". He was also the father-in-law of Thin Lizzy vocalist Phil Lynott who married his daughter on St Valentine's day 1980. Like his father before him, Crowther was also an alcoholic, battling the problem throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. On 14 November 1983 he was arrested for drunk-driving. Two weeks later he was fined, and banned from driving for nine months. This did not deter Crowther, but in October 1988 he turned up at a gala in Glastonbury drunk. This made him realise that he had a serious problem and needed help. Unlike five years earlier, his battle against alcohol addiction received much publicity. From January 1989 to 17 March 1989 Crowther was a resident in Clouds House, a drug and alcohol treatment centre near Shaftesbury. He never drank alcohol again after this. He was also one of the many hosts of the ITV panel/game show Whose Baby? which he presented in the mid-1980s. Leslie Crowther is also remembered as host of the first British version of the popular game show The Price Is Right, from 1984 to 1988, during which time his Come on down! catchphrase entered British television folklore. In 1994, Crowther said that when The Price is Right was axed in May 1988, the producers never bothered to contact him directly. Instead, he learned the news from the press who called at his house. In February 1990, however, Crowther was chosen to be host of the TV show Stars in Their Eyes. The first episode was transmitted on 21 July 1990. Crowther hosted the first three series, and was booked to record an Elvis Presley special, and a fourth series at the time of his car accident. He was also a popular president of the Lord's Taverners from January 1991 to December 1992. Crowther was a huge cricket fan and had an apartment near London's Lord's Cricket Ground for many years. [edit] The end of a careerLeslie Crowther's entire showbusiness career came to an abrupt end on the afternoon of 3 October 1992 on the M5 near Cheltenham, when he sustained serious head injuries in a car crash which nearly killed him. The precise cause of the accident is unlikely ever to be determined. In the months before the accident, Crowther was extremely busy with Lord Taverners events and functions, and the day before, 2 October, had been to a dinner in Swansea. He then opened a few Allied Carpets stores in Birmingham on the morning of 3 October. It was speculated that he fell asleep at the wheel and, as a result, his Rolls Royce car skidded into the central reservation barrier and overturned several times. The weather at the time was very wet and windy. Alcohol was not the cause however, as tests ruled this out. The car ended up on its roof on the hard shoulder of the motorway. After the accident, Crowther did not appear to be seriously injured, apart from being shaken up and sustaining a cracked bone in his neck. Crowther cracked a couple of jokes, and was able to tell the police his personal details including his home telephone number and what Warfarin tablets he was taking for his heart condition; he had been diagnosed with heart trouble three years before. In his autobiography, he claimed the stress of the media harassment over his alcoholism in late 1988 and early 1989 had brought the heart trouble on. However, after being taken to Cheltenham general hospital, his condition suddenly deteriorated and he lapsed into unconsciousness. A brain scan revealed a blood clot had formed on the left-hand side of his brain. Crowther was taken to Bristol's Frenchay Hospital for brain surgery to remove the blood clot that evening. It is very likely that the Warfarin tablets contributed to the extent of the brain bleeding, as they thin the user's blood. Crowther almost died during the operation, which took four hours that night. On the Monday afternoon, 5 October, a further scan revealed another blood clot, the size of a small apple, which had formed on the same side of his brain. Crowther underwent a second brain operation that lasted two hours and a tracheotomy to help him breathe. Crowther remained in a coma for 17 days after the accident. He was a patient in Frenchay Hospital until February 1993. He came home for the first time just before Christmas in 1992. After his release from Hospital, Crowther underwent months of occupational therapy and physical therapy. Ironically, in the summer of 1992, Rita Rees of the Bristol Headway branch, a brain injury charity, introduced herself to Crowther at Bath railway station, and asked him if he would visit Headway house, a recovery centre for people who had suffered Brain injuries. He agreed to do so. Crowther visited on 16 September 1992, two-and-a-half weeks before his car crash, and according to his wife, was very moved by what he had seen. [edit] AfterwardsCrowther was awarded the CBE in the 1993 New Year's Honours list in recognition of his years of charity work and went to Buckingham Palace to collect it in July 1993. On 20 November 1993, he made his first TV appearance since his accident on The Royal Variety Performance, appearing alongside Cilla Black. He published his autobiography, The Bonus of Laughter in October 1994 and retired from showbusiness on 4 November 1994, recognising that "I wouldn't be able to do things I've done the way I would want to, and the way my fans would expect". Five days after he retired, he appeared as the subject on This Is Your Life for the second time, having first appeared on 28 March 1973. Four months later, in March 1995 Crowther appeared as a guest on June Whitfield's This Is Your Life episode, which was to be his final ever TV appearance. [edit] DeathLeslie Crowther died from heart failure on 29 September 1996 in the Royal United Hospital in Bath, at the age of 63, with his wife Jean and family at his side. He had lived near Bath from 1978, whilst maintaining a flat in London overlooking Lord's Cricket Ground. The 30 September 1996 episode of Bruce's Price is Right, the Bruce Forsyth remake of Crowther's The Price Is Right was dedicated to Crowther at the request of Forsyth himself, according to the ITV continuity announcement before the programme. Forsyth told the Daily Mirror the previous day that Crowther had written to him just over 12 months previously, congratulating him on obtaining the job of presenting the Price Is Right, as it was relaunched on 4 September 1995. [edit] Selected filmography
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